The state’s new school curriculum changes are causing concern

Concerns are growing in Syria that the new Islamist-led government has already decided to change the school curriculum without input from the rest of society.

The transitional government’s education ministry’s Facebook page has published a new curriculum for all age groups that will take on a more Islamic slant and will drop any reference to the Assad era in all subjects.

The phrase “Protecting the Nation” was replaced with “Protecting Allah”, among other changes.

Education Minister Nazir al-Qadri played down the move, saying that the curriculum has not changed much and will remain so until specialized committees are established to review and revise it.

Other proposed changes include removing evolution and the Big Bang theory from science teaching.

References to gods worshiped in pre-Islamic Syria and images of their statues are also removed.

The importance of the great Syrian heroine Queen Zenobia, who once ruled Palmyra in the Roman era, seems to be downplayed.

The Assad era has essentially been left out of the curriculum, including poems honoring Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez in Arabic courses.

In a statement, al-Qadri said the only instructions he issued were to remove content he described as glorifying the “defunct Assad regime” and to place the Syrian revolutionary flag in all textbooks.

The minister also said that “inaccuracies” in the Islamic education curriculum had been corrected.

The changes were welcomed by some Syrians.

But the move has raised alarm among civil society activists, many of whom have returned to Syria for the first time in years.

They fear it is a sign that their voices – and the voices of groups and communities across the country – may not be heard as the country evolves under new leadership.

There have already been calls for protests ahead of the start of the new school term on Sunday.

Activists want to make clear their opposition to any move by the transitional government to make changes to the education system – or any other public institution – without involving all sections of Syrian society.

The new government took great care to hold the National Dialogue Conference.

Officials held meetings with various communities – from Christians to Kurds, to artists and intellectuals.

The message was that they want to create a new Syria with participation from all walks of life so that everyone has a stake in the country’s future.

But activists believe that unilateral changes to the school curriculum undermine those promises, and want to defend from the start the values ​​of freedom and integration that have now made possible the removal of Bashar al-Assad.