Turkish education ministry admits to scandal in school books

Education Ministry officials have admitted that none of the 18 officials in charge of controlling the text books saw an obscure caricature included in a Turkish language school book.

The pages with the caricature will be torn off each and every book before they are distributed to the students, Doğan News Agency reported. The caricature shows a polar bear making an offensive hand gesture to a man in the sea waters, telling him: "Hold my hand."

The caricature on page 13 of a Turkish workbook for sixth graders is part of an exercise to prompt students into brainstorming what the caricature really implies.

The book was controlled by 18 officials before being printed, said Alparslan Durmuş, head of the Turkish Education Ministry's board of education, but the caricature "slipped through the cracks."  

"This is a very explicit example of how meticulous we should be in the tender, analysis and distribution of books sent to our schools. The artist's statement that his permission was not taken brings the issue that the topic of plagiarism should once again be revaluated," said Merih Eyyup Demir, Head of the Union of Education Workers (Eğitim Sen) for the Aegean province of İzmir, regarding the ministry officials' taking off the controversial caricature.

Meanwhile, Durmuş discussed women's obedience of the male patriarch in the hierarchy of the home as a religious service in a press meeting on Sept. 9. The newly prepared school book on Prophet Muhammad's life says, "If there is a hierarchy in the home, a woman has to obey the male patriarch."

"We are talking about the Islamic religion in the lectures of Prophet Muhammad's life. It says [in the book], 'Spouses owe each other obedience and loyalty.' It says, if there is a...