Ronna Nirmala – The recent uproar about a school textbook with a story about a married man's mistress may have ebbed, but the controversial story is far from the only questionable content found in schoolbooks, teachers said on Friday.

Retno Listyarti, head of the Jakarta Teachers Consensus Forum (FMGJ), described the story "Bang Maman From Kali Pasir" as "just the tip of the iceberg." "There are actually far worse stories in primary school kids' textbooks," she said.

She added that many of the stories in the prescribed textbook for the Jakarta cultural studies class, for students in the first through fifth grades, had themes of violence.

These include depictions of stabbing, hitting, killing, burning and hanging, Retno said. "Is this what Betawi culture is like? Is this what we want our kids to learn? It's a shame if brawn and violence are all there is to Betawi culture," she said.

While the publisher in the "Bang Maman" case has taken much of the flak for the latest controversy, Retno said the blame for the inclusion of such stories in schoolbooks also laid with the government, which drew up the school curriculum.

"So no matter who the publisher is, the content will all be the same because they're writing it to a given standard," she said. The "Bang Maman" story, which the publisher claims to be a Jakarta tall tale, sparked a widespread uproar earlier this month among parents.

The Jakarta Education Office said the book's publisher, CV Media Kreasi, apologized for including the story in the book.

Officials also promised to engage education experts in evaluating the content of textbooks prior to publication, and to draft a regulation banning schools from using books that were not endorsed or examined by such experts.

"We will create regulations for reading materials used in schools, starting at the elementary level and going to high school," Agus Suardika, the deputy head of the education office, said last week.