Shaping Minds through ‘Ignorance’: Politics in Bangladeshi School Textbooks

Abstract

School textbooks are assumed correct and unbiased in their narrative, and most often prescribed to the young minds without questioning. However, due to the increasing interference of political parties in the government funded public education sector, the school textbooks must be critically analyzed before being considered as rightful sources of knowledge. Hence, this study posed two questions: i) how politics influences the narrative of the textbooks in Bangladesh, and ii) how these books produce ‘ignorance’ by excluding crucial facts regarding history and rights of the citizens. To seek the answers, the research evaluated NCTB (National Curriculum and Textbook Board) authorized books in Bangladesh, Social Science (Choudhury et al.) and Bangladesh and Global Studies (Patwari et al.), followed in class 6 and 7 from 1996-2017, and education policies adapted during the period. Furthermore, in two subsequent chapters, it is observed, how in Bangladesh’s context politically engineered ‘ignorance’ helps the powerful political parties to keep the citizens ignorant about their religious history and current human rights, and allows to push forward a Muslim majoritarian narrative for winning maximum number of votes. The findings of this research, in two subsequent chapters, calls for teachers and general people alike to recognize ‘ignorance’ as an active tool of political power embedded in the school textbooks