人民教育出版社回应教材插画问题并公开致歉

People’s Education Press apologizes for controversial textbook art accused of distorting kids’ aesthetic taste

人民教育出版社回应教材插画问题并公开致歉

The controversial covers and illustrations for the textbooks will be redrawn and a full evaluation of all published textbooks will be launched, the People’s Education Press announced on Thursday after textbooks published by the publishing house stirred up an online controversy over the appearance of the characters in the book.

According to the statement, the publishing house has started to redraw the covers and some illustrations for certain primary school math textbooks to “improve the painting style and the artistic level.” At the same time, it will comprehensively evaluate the cover and illustrations of all its published textbooks to further improve the design quality.

The textbook bureau of China’s Ministry of Education also announced on Thursday at noon that it will investigate the issue.

The hashtag “math textbook from People’s Education Press” quickly topped the trending list on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo on Thursday, earning over one billion million views.

The viral snapshots of the primary school math textbooks showed some of the cartoon children depicted in strange poses, including a crooked mouth, tongue sticking out and squinting eyes. One boy character has what looks like a tattoo on his ankle, a girl character goes to school in what appears to be a bunny girl outfit, and some other kids wear clothes with the US flag.

Many netizens criticized the art, claiming it would distort the aesthetic sense of young students and accused the illustrator of deliberately vilifying the aesthetics of the Chinese people. They also condemned the officials in charge of reviewing the content of the textbooks, calling them irresponsible.

这两天，有关“人教版数学教材”的话题登上了微博热搜榜。该话题下讨论的焦点是，人民教育出版社（简称“人教社”）出版的小学数学教材内插画“太丑”“病态”，画中人物都是“唐氏综合征面部特征”，不符合中国人形象。

对此，5月26日，人教社回应称，“近日，我们关注到网上有关小学数学教材封面和插图的意见，及时组织专家认真研究，对社会各界好的意见建议虚心采纳，已着手重新绘制有关册次数学教材封面和部分插图，改进画法画风，提高艺术水平，充分发挥教材封面和插图的育人作用。同时，我们将举一反三，全面评估所出版教材的封面、插图，进一步提高设计质量。”

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