Was This Image Related to Homosexuality In A Family Setting, added to a Sri Lankan School Textbook? Find out the facts… 

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Amid new educational reforms, heated debates and misleading social media posts have emerged. Here, we fact-check one such post.

Social Media Posts:

Several posts went viral, implying homosexuality is being introduced to children in Sri Lanka through a lesson on ‘diverse families’ with illustrations depicting two mothers and a child and two fathers and a child.

Facebook | Archived Link  FB

Further posts regarding this were shared via social media and websites as follows.

Facebook Lankaleader | Archived

Below are some other posts with the same narrative, scolding the government, especially the Education Minister and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya.

Facebook | Archived Link

We conducted a fact-check to verify whether this is actually the content in a lesson of a textbook published in accordance with the new education reforms in Sri Lanka.

Fact Check:

The inclusion of an inappropriate website name in the Grade 6 English subject module controversy, related to the new education reforms, has become a major discussion point in Sri Lanka. In such a context, the posts are also being shared, indicating them to be a part of a module created through the new education reforms.

To verify the claim, we first examined the shared image using a Reverse Image Search to determine its origin. However, through the Reverse Image search, we found that the shared page was from a textbook in an international school in Egypt.

Egyptian media reported in 2017 that the Egyptian Ministry of Education launched an urgent investigation into this textbook page, which ‘supports homosexuality’.

Here is another report published at the time. At the time, the Ministry of Education said that Egypt would completely reject any school that promotes or teaches subjects that violate the moral values ​​of Egyptian society.

Two years ago, a similar incident had emerged in Egypt with reports of a ‘German Schools Teaching Homosexuality for Egyptian Students’. 

Media Secretary to the Deputy Minister of Education and Higher Education

We also inquired with Ms Chathurie Perera, the Media Secretary to the Deputy Minister of Education and Higher Education, Mr Madura Seneviratne, regarding this matter. She confirmed that the textbook page with this content is not a page from a Sri Lankan school textbook.

It was also emphasised that the textbooks containing the modules presented under the new reforms do not contain any section describing this type of family model with two mothers and a child or two fathers and a child.

Moreover, the shared photo has been published in many countries with various misleading narratives. Such a post was published in Tamil Nadu, India, falsely claiming that a textbook in the region was promoting homosexual education.

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Conclusion: 

Our investigation shows that the viral photo, claiming to be part of a school textbook in Sri Lanka, promoting homosexuality in a family setting under new education reforms in Sri Lanka, is false.

The viral image dates to 2017, when an international school in Egypt featured the page, which came under much scrutiny, making international headlines.