E/CN.4/2003/66/Add.1 page 23 pursued over the past 40 years has certainly been a success in quantitative terms, but the outcome in terms of efficacy and quality has not been satisfactory. Besides, many informants, including teachers, indicated that quite apart from their quality shortcomings, the schools had played a not insignificant role in spreading the Islamists’ ideas. 128. The urgent recruitment of teaching assistants from the Middle East who could put Algeria’s policy of Arabizing education into effect was said to have been the initial vector for the spread of extremist ideas in schools. 129. In the religious education classes that took the place of civics, teachers were said to have taught very young children how to stone an adulterous woman and how to wash the dead. The case of a teacher citing nationalities that should henceforward be regarded as nations of miscreants was also reported. In general, curricula were said to have conveyed a distorted notion of Algerian history and a degrading image of women, and to have encouraged pupils to spurn other religions, which were presented merely as those of colonial settlers. At the same time, concern was expressed that children could not speak out freely in class and ask awkward questions about Islam for fear of being labelled as troublemakers. 130. Although some teaching staff sought to use the schools to popularize extremist ideas, both governmental and non-governmental sources emphasized the need not to stigmatize teachers, who put up a fierce resistance against obscurantism and for doing so found themselves, like their pupils, among the victims of religious extremism. 131. On the organization of religious teaching, the Ministry of National Education provided the Special Rapporteur with answers to the questionnaire which he had sent to all States in 1994. These reveal that there is no religious establishment within the educational system run by the Ministry of National Education, and that the Ministry has sole authority to design religious instruction curricula although, according to the Minister, these are vetted by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the High Islamic Council. 132. Islamic instruction is compulsory, and is taught from the first year of primary school to the last year of secondary education for two hours each week (five hours for streams preparing the baccalaureate in Islamic studies). Religious topics may also be taken up in other subjects. Religious education curricula, which allot no time to other religions but do tackle the question of eliminating all forms of intolerance and discrimination in matters of belief, are monitored, and sanctions are applied if they overstep the mark. The Minister of Education informed the Special Rapporteur, however, that religious instruction takes no account of the different tendencies within Islam. 133. On the subject of compulsory religious education, the Special Rapporteur’s attention was drawn to one case in which the children of a foreign couple were refused a dispensation. During their discussions with the Special Rapporteur, the Minister of Education and Ministry staff expressed astonishment and said they were prepared to grant such dispensations; the Special Rapporteur was given this commitment in writing. On the other hand, Algerian children of originally Muslim but now atheist parents would not be allowed the benefit of such an arrangement given Algeria’s interpretative declaration relating to article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that a child must be brought up in its parents’ religion.