The Minister for Education, Dr. Aishath Ali has stated that a committee has been compiled to identify negligence of those who had proofread the textbooks with typing mistakes in them.

During a press conference held on Monday, the minister explained that, a proof-reading process takes place after compilation of the textbooks, and that in the case of the Quran textbooks with serious mistakes found in them, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs was also supposed to proof-read them a second time.

The minister stated that the hard copies clearly had not been checked efficiently enough, considering that four textbooks were found to have such mistakes. Therefore, a committee has been formed to find those responsible for the negligence.

The minister gave her assurance that all necessary action will be taken to prevent such an issue repeating in the future.

According to the ministry, the second grade textbook was from 2015, therefore having been reviewed by the Islamic Ministry during the time. Due to this, the ministry has asked for this to not be made into a political matter, saying that specific mechanisms will be incorporated, in order to avoid such situations.

The ministry revealed that the verses of the Quran which were printed falsely onto the first grade textbook, were copied using an application, stating that issues have occurred in the past during this process.

The education ministry stated that the textbooks are reviewed by National Institution of Education (NIE) and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs prior to publication. Moreover, efforts are underway to verify the root cause of the mistakes.

The mistake in question was that, a verse of the Quran was printed incorrectly, with two verses of the Quran incorrectly merged together.