Where Is Mahathir? Textbook With No Mention Of Him As Prime Minister Goes Viral
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- Published on Friday, 25 August 2017 13:21
He was prime minister for 22 years but somehow a local textbook for the civics subject has saw it fit to erase former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad from Malaysia's history.
A photograph of the page in the textbook has been widely shared on social media leading to the Education Ministry taking action over the damaging publicity.
In a statement yesterday, the ministry announced it had made a police report over the matter.
Identifying the textbook title as 'Pendidikan Sivik Kewarganegaraan Tingkatan Tiga', the ministry emphasized that the book was not a ministry publication and the police report is directed at the publisher of the book.
Pic: KPM
"MOE is upset with the allegations and based on the outcome of our cross-checking, the book concerned is not published by this ministry and would like to stress that every textbook produced by it is based on co-curriculum documents and actual facts that occurred at that particular time or period.
"MOE has never issued any written or oral directive to schools under this ministry to remove Dr Mahathir's picture," said the statement.
The second part of the statement referred to earlier rumours regarding Mahathir's photograph having being removed from a school's wall depicting all the prime ministers of Malaysia.
Pic: Facebook
The issue had also cropped up earlier this month when a question was asked in Dewan Rakyat about whether the government was planning to remove Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s achievements from school text books.
DAP MP Lim Lip Eng had raised the query as to whether Mahathir would still be given the honour and recognition as the “Father of Modernisation”.
However, Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid said that Mahathir's contributions as prime minister, regardless of whether he now heads the opposition coalition, was a “fact” of history.
“What is printed in the ministry’s text books is based on facts and it will remain,” Mahdzir stated in a written reply.
- mD
