CAIRO: Sources at the Ministry of Education said Minister of Education Ahmed Gamal Eddin Moussa withdrew 80,000 copies of history and civic education books at the secondary school level since they contain pictures of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The sources said these books were printed in the summer of 2010, before the outbreak of the Egyptian January 25 Revolution. There was a surplus of books sent out with new prints. Copies were quickly withdrawn from the directorates of education, after multiple complaints from teachers and parents with these books; they said the books contained historical fallacies that could have a negative impact on the students' understanding. According to sources, there was a surplus of 30 million copies the ministry decided to use during the school year to save 120 million EGP (U.S. $20.1 million) in costs of re-printing. In addition, the minister asked the covers be redesigned to depict historical incidents and not political leaders in order to perpetuate the culture of the cult of the personality. Historian Asim Desouqi is modifying the history syllabi of elementary and middle schools. He called not to teach anything about the current political era in schools until it ends as to not let any political bias enter syllabi as they did in the past. Official statistics revealed the Ministry of Education asked the press to print 153 million books for the new school year and used 30 million copies of last year's after confirmation from advisers that the content of the two versions match.
