He issued these remarks while addressing a press conference on Friday after a meeting of the board. Ashrafi said that the Single National Curriculum did not have any element of extremism and radicalism. So far, 307 books had been cleared from possible extremist content, he added.
Expressing grief over the Sialkot tragedy, Ashrafi said that the nation was ashamed of the incident. He added that Islam did not endorse any such heinous act and that condemnation of the incident by the Ulema was loud and clear.
While responding to a question, Ashrafi said that if Maulana Fazlur Rehman wants to be congratulated for his victory in the local body polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he should first congratulate Imran Khan on being elected as the prime minister.
Ulema's involvement to curb extremism?
The Single National Curriculum recently introduced by the government has been criticised by various quarters due to some of its content that has been termed regressive. It has also been said that some parts of the books under the SNC have content discriminating against religious minorities. The Ulema Board's inclusion in the process of reviewing the textbooks before publication has been a particular cause for concern for educationists and rights activists, with many saying that the clerics should not be reviewing books other than those of Islamiat.
Earlier this year, a reviewer of Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) reportedly asked a publisher of a Science textbook to edit scientist Isaac Newton’s picture in the book, whom he mistook for a ‘lady’, and put a scarf on his head.
In her The News column in April, researcher Ayesha Razaqque had made this unusual revelation.
“Some time back, a publisher submitted a science textbook to the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) for review and approval for use in schools. On one of the pages was a picture of Sir Isaac Newton next to a tree, depicting the scientific legend of the moment an apple fell from the tree that would inspire him to discover the law of gravitation. In that picture Newton was shown wearing a long garment and maybe long hair or a wig, as was fashionable for that era. One of the comments from the PCTB’s review of this book was that the ‘lady’ in the picture be edited to add a scarf on her head, so as to observe proper purdah. True story!,” she had written.
Tahir Ashrafi's statement about the ulema addressing the issue of extremism, therefore, might have to be taken with a pinch of salt.