Disastrous textbooks for grade VI, VII must be corrected without delay

Facing huge criticism in the mainstream as well as social media, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) has sought explanations from the panel of writers responsible for writing a grade VII science textbook on why a number of passages in the book were copied directly from the internet.
Moreover, translation of these pages was done with the help of Google Translate. It is preposterous to think that textbooks of a nation can be written in such a slapdash manner of copy and paste from the National Geographic website. This amateurish and immoral approach to writing the textbook is very shocking, to say the least.
Meanwhile, On Monday, Prof Zafar Iqbal and Prof Haseena Khan, two writers in the panel of writing this book, released a statement acknowledging the problems in the textbook. The other teachers in the panel were Prof Mohammad Mizanur Rahman Khan, Prof Dr Mustak Ibn Ayub, and Assistant Professor Rony Basak. Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal was the editor of the book. We cannot but feel pity for the writer who plagiarised the sections of the textbook. We strongly demand of Prof Zafar Iqbal that his name be made public, otherwise making the claim that he and Prof Haseena did not write the plagiarised sections appear to be pointless. The person who made the copy and paste must take the blame.
However, correcting the science book alone will not redeem the NCTB. There are even more serious allegations. In writing the History and Social Science book for grade VI, Bangladesh’s history has also been misrepresented to serve the vested interests of India’s Hindutva politics that see Muslims as invaders and intruders in India. We do not know who among the panel writers mischievously eschewed the true history of Muslims in Bangladesh, but Bangladesh’s history must be written from the perspective of Bangladesh only representing the true historical facts.  
The burqa, the female dress code in Islam, and the beard of a Muslim man, have also been presented in a negative light in the book of grade VII, which is highly objectionable. It is Islamophobia, to say the least. Bangladesh as a Muslim majority nation does not enforce burqa and hijab for women in society like Iran or Afghanistan. Yet, choosing stories from the fictitious work of Begum Rokeya and including that in the textbook to generate hate among the children against burqa is not only unacceptable but utterly reprehensible also.
The NCTB must also exclude all these objectionable parts and take serious measures so that textbooks for children become informative, correct and enjoyable in Bangladesh’s true historical and cultural perspective.