MP seeks to create committee for examining Integrated History textbook

Christian Democrat MP Ion Varta requested on Thursday, February 8, in the Parliament’s Plenum, to constitute a new committee composed of teachers and specialists who would examine the Integrated History textbooks. As Varta says, the ad-hoc committee set up at the initiative of President Vladimir Voronin did not have a relevant and representative character, while the committee’s final session was attended by only 13 members of 32 designated. At the same time, the MP stated that the final document was not worked out by the committee’s members, while the conclusions do not correspond to many reviews worked out by diverse groups of history specialists. Varta also said that those who have influenced the committee’s activity showed a disrespectful attitude towards the work of the specialists, who drew up objective and pertinent reviews of the Integrated History textbooks. According to the same source, the inept attempt to save the compromised textbooks by means of publishing certain errata is a try to hush up the failure of those who contributed to their implementation. In the conclusions of the Committee for scientific examination of the new history textbooks, approved on December 22, 2006, it is mentioned that certain inaccuracies have been discovered while writing the textbooks. These inaccuracies “can be characterised by formulation of some too general principles regarding the concept of teaching the history in schools, formation of a group of authors without including in their composition the school teachers from, editing and superficial examination of the textbooks proposed for publication etc.” The committee requests the Ministry of Education and Youth (MEY) to reformulate the basic principles of the concept of teaching the history in secondary schools, and owing these principles, to alter the curriculum. Taking into account the fact that the textbooks proposed for examination have been already published and distributed to the schools across the country, the committee recommends the Ministry to use them critically, paying heed to the observations formulated in the notifications of the assessors. Concurrently, MEY, by mutual agreement from the textbooks’ authors, will distribute annexes for each published textbook, containing fact-related and orthographic errors traced by reviewers.