Ministry of Education, Jamaica
The Ministry of Education has been urged to put in place a mechanism to have textbooks revised before they are issued to schools to prevent future backlash from parents about their contents.
The suggestion comes after concerns were raised about racist undertones in a passage in the text book entitled "Creative English for Caribbean Primary Schools level 2."
It described a young girl with long black hair, slender nose and brown complexion as being likeable.
Some persons have argued that rather than sanitise and censure textbooks, children should be exposed and taught to think critically about what actually exists. However, other persons, including Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah, Cultural Studies Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, think that the textbook should be removed from book lists or revised.
Similar concern
In 2012, Education officials were faced with similar concerns when the Health and Family Life Education Curriculum caused public uproar and was temporarily withdrawn after some parents and educators objected to it teaching grades 7-9 students about the homosexual lifestyle.
That section was later removed.
Textbook Committee
In response to the latest furore, Everton Hannam, President of the National Parents Teacher's Association, wants the Ministry of Education to utilize the textbook committee which was established some years ago to monitor the number of books bought by parents.
Hannam is hoping that the monitoring of the content of textbook, will be added to the mandate of the committee.
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