A large number of teachers with Islamist inclinations were removed from their jobs in Egypt, Egyptian Education Minister Hussein Kamel Bahaeddin said last week.

Bahaeddin said the decision to remove these teachers is based on reports by security services and supervisors in the ministry as well as complaints from students' parents.

He added that he "removes a teacher immediately" once he determines he or she is bent on challenging national policy.

Meanwhile, the authorities have moved towards teaching school children about tolerance of other cultures, but denied the decision was in response to US pressure for reform, an Egyptian newspaper reported.

Bahaeddin said that a subject on ethics that "stresses values of prog-ress, cooperation, sincerity and acceptance of others", has been introduced into elementary school textbooks.

The minister denied that the decision came as a result of pressure from the US, which wishes to introduce democratic reforms in Arab and Muslim countries to eliminate a climate that Washington considers as helping to breed terrorism.

Such reforms would include amending school textbooks deemed intolerant.

Bahaeddin said Egypt would take lessons from no one over reforming its school books in a bid to promote religious tolerance and stamp out sources of terror.

Reacting to charges by Islamists about bowing to US pressure in amending textbooks, the minister said, "Rumours that we have withdrawn Quranic verses and the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) from school texts, and that we marginalise Islamic history, are totally unfounded".

He also denied reports that religious subjects were now getting less emphasis in schools and that chapters on jihad and wars led by the Prophet were dropped from the curriculum.

Education reform in Egypt has as of late become tinged with concerns about US cultural imperialism.

Bahaeddin visited Washington last year and shortly afterwards the People's Assembly (parliament) approved the so-called New Basic Education Bilateral Agreement with the US.
The agreement is a $64 million funded education reform package.

Immediately, Islamists and opposition MPs said the agreement would open "a backdoor for interference" by the US.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has become deeply involved in reforming education in Egypt. USAID has donated $765 million to education in Egypt since 1975.

In the same time, experts, university professors, NGOs, Ministry of Education officials, Muslim religious scholars as well as representatives of the EU, UNICEF and UNESCO, were asked by the ministry to help formulate standards for education in Egypt.

The effort implies such an overhaul of the education system that most involved warn that it would take years to finalize.

The writer is an Egyptian journalist based in Cairo.