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| - Iran's education ministry said Tuesday the new cover of a schoolbook which removed girls from an illustration will be modified next year, following widespread criticism on social media. After the ministry distributed textbooks for the new school year on September 5, parents saw the cover of the third grade mathematics book had changed. Two girls had been removed, leaving only three boys under a tree made up of numbers and mathematical signs. A wave of criticsm online eventually prompted a rare apology from the education minister. "A tasteless act was done in removing the image of girls, therefore we apologise for this and will correct it," Mohsen Haji-Mirzayi said Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported. On Tuesday, the ministry's public relations officer told AFP the books would be changed. "The textbooks have already been printed and distributed, so the cover will not change until the next year," the ministry said, but gave no details on what the change will be. Public and private schools are required to use the textbooks published by the ministry. The books' cover and content are subject to change every few years based on religious, revolutionary and educational considerations. The change caused uproar among Iranians on social media, with some denouncing the move as a form of gender discrimination. Some pointed out that Iranian-born Maryam Mirzakhani was the first woman to win the coveted Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for mathematics. "The most prestigious mathematics figure of Iran's recent decade was a woman named Maryam Mirzakhani, and then you remove girls from a mathematics textbook cover?" one person wrote on Twitter. Illustrator Nasim Bahary, who had designed the original cover, said it was "unbelievable" to see the change. Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, said last week on Twitter that "the people's considerations are correct, girls cannot be ignored." But she also noted that other changed textbook covers -- including a science schoolbook featuring only three girls -- was a sign there was no intent to discriminate. A statement by the ministerial body in charge of textbooks said the change was because the original illustration was "too crowded with too many mathematical concepts." amh/kam/pjm
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