Religious Fanatics Choose Schoolbooks

Roman Giertych may not be the Minister of Education anymore, but his replacement, Ryszard Legutko, famous Polish philosopher against "tolerance, is no better. As it turns out, the woman who chooses the textbooks in Poland is an ultra-Catholic activist. Books are approved by the Ministry of Education after 3 "reviewers" from a panel of experts approve them. Despite a positive approval from those "experts", an English language textbook was turned down by the head of textbook selection because the published didn't want to remove a chapter which made reference to Halloween.

The MacMillion series "Bugs" is supposed to make learning English fun for primary school children and what can be more fun than Halloween. Although foreign language books often contain chapters that deal with holidays in the countries where those languages are spoken, the Ministry of Education felt that Halloween is "not in line with Polish cultural traditions".

"Bugs" is not the only book to fall victim to the far-right freaks in the Ministry of Education. A University of Warsaw professor acting as an "expert" rejected as Polish book as well claiming it was not patriotic enough and contained "ecological propaganda".