Pasaman police raided a number of West Sumatra schools early this month and confiscated “pornographic textbooks” that supposedly contained vulgar content, according to complaints filed by parents.
Other than the academic challenges of being in fifth grade, students also need to deal with the bodily changes that the onset of puberty comes with. It’s widely known that Indonesia isn’t exemplary at giving the young population practical sexual education. The popular reason continues to be ‘morality issues’, although most schools do cover the basics of human anatomy.
Fifth-grade students in the Pasaman regency of West Sumatra, however, will be learning nothing close to the basics of sex ed. The only thing they will be learning is that they should be ashamed of their bodies after their science and health books were confiscated by the police and the region’s Department of Education. The textbooks were deemed “vulgar” for containing an illustration of both male and female reproductive anatomy.
Lima Buku IPA SD Berisi Konten Vulgar Disita Polisi #Pendidikan https://t.co/Gi0HqYUPdK
— JPNN.com (@jpnncom) October 5, 2016
See: Locals Stunned as Digital Billboard Shows Porn in Public
Pasaman Police said they had the consent of the schools to conduct the raid and confiscate the textbooks allegedly containing “pornographic content”, as reported by the complaining parents.
Police Chief Syamsuir told JPNN that some schools in the Rao district requested that authorities form a team to trace the books throughout the region. He added that the schools are willing to surrender them, as the textbooks have been troubling people in the area.
In relation to the police raids, a memo banning the vulgar textbooks was also issued by the Pasaman Department of Education.
Yunzar Lubis, head of the Pasaman District Education Council, told Okezone he would be requesting his superiors to review the memo. He argued that the textbooks in question had been compiled and reviewed by educational authorities from the Ministry of Education, and were recognized by the ministry as fit for fifth-grade academic use.
Featured image via Akshayapatra