In collaboration with Al-Azhar (the highest Muslim institution in Egypt) and the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ministry of Education has decided to expurgate religious textbooks used in local schools. Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr told a press conference that these textbooks contain material that encourages religious violence, extremism and hatred. Indicating that the expurgation actually started months ago, the Minister of Education stressed that Islam preaches tolerance and peace. According to the Minister, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda, and his bishops have been entrusted with expurgating religious textbooks used by Coptic schoolchildren, after receiving several complaints from worried parents. The press conference was also told by the Mufti of the Republic, Ali Gomaa, that the new content of these religious textbooks, the fruit of more than a decade of hard work, will draw the attention of Egyptian schoolchildren to their deep-rooted ethics, human values and virtues. This step will have a substantial influence on the Egyptian child's raw mind, but it remains curious it has taken religious and educational officials so long to correct the incorrect or inaccurate information in these textbooks. It is a shame that officials on both sides had to wait for violence to erupt between Egyptian Muslims and Copts before making up their minds. The expurgation of the religious textbooks is a good idea, but die-hard Muslim and Christian preachers, who poison the minds of parents of schoolchildren, must also be reined in.
