Odisha finds 1,741 errors in school textbooks after spending ₹175 crore on printing
Odisha's government has confirmed that 1,741 errors were discovered in school textbooks for classes 1 to 8 following a ₹175 crore printing and publication initiative. State School and Mass Education Minister Nityanand Gond disclosed in a written response to Congress MLA Sofia Firdous that the errors comprised 1,075 grammatical, typological, and spelling mistakes, along with five factual and conceptual errors across various textbooks. Additionally, 661 suggestions were made for improving the books.
Detailed breakdown of the errors showed significant variations across subjects and grades. The class 8 Science textbook contained 294 errors, the class 7 Urdu book had 121 errors, the class 8 Sanskrit book contained 114 errors, the class 6 Social Science book had 98 errors, and the class 7 Sanskrit book contained 92 errors. The government has stated that steps have been taken to rectify all identified errors in revised editions of the textbooks.
In response to the quality control failures, the minister announced that specific measures including fact-checking by subject and language experts have been introduced during textbook preparation to prevent recurrence. The government suspended the then director and three assistant directors, while initiating disciplinary action against another six assistant directors. Error-free revised books are being printed and distributed to students.
