KP govt takes notice of ‘objectionable’ content in Afghan refugees’ books

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government took notice on Tuesday of the alleged anti-Pakistan curriculum being taught under a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) run project in schools for children of Afghan refugees across the province.

UNHCR currently runs The Community Oriented Primary Education project is to dispense free education to the children of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

The home and tribal affairs department of KP government, through a letter, directed the Commissionerate Afghan Refugees (CAR) to take necessary measures to stop this practice.

Reportedly, UNHCR had recently changed the syllabus being taught in as many as 101 schools for Afghan children. It is said that no prior approval was taken either by the federal or provincial government to change the syllabus being taught to grades 1-6 in the province.

The controversial syllabus is being taught to Afghan refugee children in grades 1-6. The KP government’s letter highlighted the following elements in the curriculum that it viewed with “great concern”.

The letter sent to the commissionerate includes several objections including the presence of Afghan flag on every page of the English books, India being proposed as a friendly country to Afghanistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and disputed Kashmir to be the part of India on the maps in the social studies books and the Pak-Afghan border being called as ‘Durand Line’.

However, the UNHCR denied all the allegations saying that no such changes in the curriculum were made in the textbooks being taught to the children of Afghan refugees.

Answering to the objectionable content, the UNHCR said in a statement that the same syllabus is being taught to the Afghan children in Pakistan as it is taught in the Afghan schools so the children can integrate in the society after they return back to Afghanistan.