Cairo: Egypt’s education authorities will stop featuring the country’s recent uprisings in history textbooks, saying it is too early to objectively evaluate them.
In the past six years, Egypt has seen two popular revolts that resulted in regime changes.
The first took place in 2011 when 18-day street protests forced long-time president Hosni Mubarak to step down.
In 2013, massive protests against the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule prompted the army, led at the time by incumbent President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, to depose president Mohammad Mursi, who hails from the now-outlawed Islamist group.
“The reason for removing the two revolutions from the history subject is that their documents are not available yet,” said Jamal Shaqra, a history professor and a member of a committee set up by the Education Ministry to revise the history syllabus for schools.
He added in a press statement that it takes at least 15 years to objectively evaluate events after their actual occurrence.
Under the new changes taking effect as of the next school year, the 1952 revolution that toppled the monarchy in Egypt will be the latest revolt to be featured in the country’s history textbooks.
Education authorities have said the modifications have been introduced in response to a recommendation from an ad hoc panel as part of efforts to develop the national education system.
Weeks ago, the Education Ministry came under criticism after high school students were asked in the final-year history examination: What would have been the case if Al Sissi had not delivered a statement on June 30, 2013, when he was the defence minister, giving the Brotherhood a 48-hour ultimatum to respond to people’s demand?
Critics claimed that the question was politically motivated, a charge that education authorities denied.
“This question existed in the textbook,” said Mamdouh Qadri, a history adviser for the ministry. “There was no mixture between politics and exams.”
The decision to excise the 2011 and 2013 revolts from history textbooks has sparked a controversy in Egypt.
“This decision is a grave mistake,” Mohammad Afifi, a history professor at the state-run Cairo University, said.
“The two revolutions represent legitimacy of the current ruling system in Egypt,” he told private newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. “The argument that long years should pass before political events are included in history textbooks is a strange idea,” Afifi added.
The row has spilled over into the parliament, led by Al Sissi’s backers. Lawmaker Majda Nasr said she had presented a request for Education Minister Tareq Shawqi to come to the assembly to provide an explanation for the decision. She urged other parliamentarians to join her in pushing for a reversal of the decision.
Faced with the criticism, the Education Ministry has said that incidents of the two revolts will be narrated without comments in the national education, a non-obligatory school subject.
