An unusually large number of boat pictures in primary textbooks for the 2027 school year has set off heated discussion on social media. Online activists say the Bangla books for Class One and Class Three carry far more pictures of boats than they should. The boat is the Awami League’s election symbol.
Activist Khalid Mohammad said in a Facebook post that the Class One Bangla book has at least 30 pictures of boats and the Class Three Bangla book 24, a total of 54 across the two books.
The viral post asked why the same symbol needs to appear so often in lessons on letters, words and recognising pictures. It also said it should be looked into whether officials close to the Awami League have influence at the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB).
In the comments, one Salman Shamil wrote that the repetition of the same symbol was an attempt to fix the boat in children’s minds. Another activist also pointed to the prominence of boats in the Class Three book.
People involved in the field, however, say that in a river country like Bangladesh it is natural for textbooks to use pictures of boats to show its history, culture and rural life. Boats are closely tied to waterways, transport and heritage.
Even so, the question remains how far repeating the same kind of picture helps pupils’ interest in learning and the variety of what they see. Whether more varied pictures of the environment, occupations, animals, plants and daily life could have been used instead has also come up.
In primary education pictures are not just decoration but an important learning tool, those involved said, so each picture’s relevance to the lesson, suitability for the age group and teaching purpose should be ensured.
One commenter said it was also a fair question what planning lay behind the use of boat pictures, how the need for each picture was decided and whether there is any set guidance for ensuring variety in choosing them.
Making good-quality textbooks for children requires balance in the pictures as well as accuracy in the content.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report