Odisha School Textbooks Had 1,741 Errors, Rs 175 Crore Spent On Printing: Minister
School and Mass Education Minister Nityanand Gond, in a written reply to a question raised in the Assembly, says that the issue has led to revised editions, stricter checks and action against officials
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha School and Mass Education Minister Nityanand Gond said that 1,741 errors were found in textbooks for Classes 1 to 8 and Rs 175 crore was spent on printing and publication of the books.
In a written reply to a question raised by Congress MLA Sofia Firdous in the Legislative Assembly, the Minister said the errors included grammatical, typographical and spelling mistakes, along with a small number of factual and conceptual mistakes.
He said that the government had taken steps to correct the issues in revised editions and introduced fresh checks to prevent such errors in future.
According to the Minister, 1,075 grammatical, typographical and spelling errors, along with five factual and conceptual errors, were found in different school textbooks and 661 suggestions were made to improve the textbooks.
The data shared by the Minister showed that 294 errors were found in the Class 8 Science textbook, 121 in the Class 7 Urdu book, 114 in the Class 8 Sanskrit book, 98 in the Class 6 Social Science book, and 92 in the Class 7 Sanskrit book.
Gond said steps had been taken to rectify all errors in the revised editions of the textbooks.
“Specific measures, such as fact-checking by subject and language experts, have been introduced during textbook preparation to prevent the recurrence of such errors in future textbooks. Error-free books are being printed and distributed to students,” he said.
In another statement, the minister said the Directorate of Teacher Education and the State Council of Educational Research and Training were entrusted with the responsibility of publishing the textbooks, and that the books were printed as per the draft prepared by the council.
After printing and distribution, some errors in the textbooks came to notice. The government suspended the then director and three assistant directors, and initiated disciplinary action against six other assistant directors, Gond said.
Recently, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) threw its weight behind the ongoing agitation over alleged errors in Odisha’s school textbooks.
CJP co‑convenor Saurav Das, who was in Bhubaneswar as part of the party’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign recently, announced his support the protest and hunger strikes over the textbook issue under the banner of ‘Nabnirman Yuva Chhatra Sangathan’.
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Hundreds of youths and students from across Odisha joined the BJD’s ‘Assembly Gherao’ agitation in Bhubaneswar on September 23, demanding the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond over the large-scale errors in the school textbooks.