Odisha finds 1,741 errors in school textbooks, Rs 175 crore spend on printing

The Odisha government on Friday said that 1,741 errors were found in textbooks of classes 1 to 8, and that Rs 175 crore was spent on their printing and publication. In a written response to a question from Congress MLA Sofia Firdous, State School and Mass Education Minister Nityanand Gond said that a total of 1,075 grammatical, typological, and spelling errors, along with five factual and conceptual errors, were found across various school textbooks.

Besides, 661 suggestions were made for improving the textbooks, he said. According to the data provided by the minister, 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. Steps have been taken to rectify all such errors in the revised editions of the textbooks, he said.

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"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 added.

In another statement, Gond said that the Directorate of Teacher Education and State Council of Educational Research and Training (TE&SCERT) was given the responsibility to publish the textbooks, and the books were printed as per the draft prepared by the council. After printing and distribution, some errors in the textbooks came to notice. Taking this matter seriously, the government suspended the then director and three assistant directors and initiated disciplinary action against another six assistant directors, the minister added.