Syria begins deleting textbook content, raising concerns among citizens

student

image source,Reuters

  • Author,Sebastian Usher
  • Role,BBC reporter
  • Reporting fromdamascus

Syrians are increasingly concerned about the new Islamist government. One of the reasons is that the new regime has decided to change the school curriculum without consulting the society and others.

The transitional government's Ministry of Education's Facebook page (Meta) has published new curricula for all ages that will be more Islamic and remove any reference to the Assad era from all subjects.

The phrase "defend the country" has been replaced by "defend Allah", among other changes.

Education Minister Nazir Qadri has tried to downplay the doubts, saying the curriculum has not essentially changed and will remain the same until a special committee is formed to review and revise it.

Other proposed changes include removing evolution and the Big Bang theory from science teaching.

Images of gods and their statues worshiped in Syria before Islam will also be removed. The significance of Queen Zenobia, the heroine who once ruled Palmyra in Roman times, also seems to have been downplayed.

Content from the Assad era has been largely removed from the curriculum, including poetry praising Assad and his father Hafez in Arabic courses.

Education Minister Al Qadri said in a statement that the only directives he had issued were to remove content from textbooks that "glorified the past Assad regime" and to include the Syrian revolutionary flag in all textbooks. He also said the new government had corrected "mistakes" in the Islamic education curriculum.

Minister of Education Nazir Al Qadri

image source,Reuters

Image caption,Education Minister Nazir Qadri tried to downplay the doubts and said the curriculum has not changed in essence and will remain the same until a special committee is formed to review and revise it.

Indeed, the changes have been welcomed by some Syrians. But the move has alarmed civil society activists, with many returning to Syria for the first time in years. They worry it's a sign that their voices, along with those of diverse groups and communities across the country, may be ignored as the country moves forward under new leadership.

As a result, there are already calls for protests before the new semester begins. Civil society actors want to express their opposition to the transitional government embarking on changes to the education system or other state institutions without involving all segments of Syrian society.

The new government stressed that it would hold a national dialogue conference and said officials would hold meetings with different communities, including Christians, Kurds, artists and intellectuals.

Their message is a desire to create a new Syria that involves all sectors of society so that everyone has a place in the country's future.

But many activists in the country believe that unilateral changes to school curricula have weakened those commitments; they initially hoped that the values ​​of freedom and tolerance, which they hoped to bring about after Assad's government was ousted, would have a greater voice. possible.

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