Bhubaneswar: Even as criticism mounts over the thousands of errors detected in the newly-introduced Odia textbooks in government schools, the School and Mass Education Department has ruled out reprinting the books, leaving students and teachers to grapple with an 87-page corrigendum issued to rectify the mistakes.
The decision has sparked concern among educators, particularly because students in senior classes will be required to follow their teachers’ instructions to identify and correct the errors in their textbooks themselves using the corrigendum issued by the Directorate of Teacher Education and the State Council of Educational Research and Training (TE & SCERT).
The education department had tasked SCERT with preparing 55 new textbooks under the revised syllabus aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. However, a review later identified 1,678 errors across textbooks for Classes I to VIII, prompting the issuance of the 87-page correction document.
The director of TE & SCERT, Madhusmita Sahoo, on Thursday said reprinting the books at this stage is not feasible. “For the 2026-27 academic year, most schools have already received and distributed the new textbooks. Since May, we have sent two letters to district education officers informing them of the mistakes and we hope teachers will ensure that all corrections are made so that no student is affected. Teachers have been asked to point out these mistakes in classrooms,” she added.
Sahoo said teachers would assist students in junior classes in making the corrections. “Students in senior classes will have to make the necessary changes in their textbooks themselves while following their teachers’ instructions and using the corrigendum,” she added.
Ironically, the highest number of 705 errors has been found in Class VIII textbooks, the very books that students will now be expected to correct on their own. The mistakes include 294 errors in Jijnasa, 114 in Sanskrit, 25 in Social Science and 31 in Literature, apart from several others in English and Mathematics. Class VII textbooks contain 387 errors, while Class VI books have 289.
Sahoo said that SCERT would ensure that the mistakes are corrected in the editions to be printed for the 2027-28 academic session.
Teachers, however, fear that the exercise will consume valuable classroom time and impose an additional burden on students who are already adjusting to a new curriculum amid delays in textbook distribution. Odisha Primary School Teachers’ Association president, Brahmananda Maharana, said asking students to manually correct hundreds of mistakes was impractical and unfair. “We are completely against this move. We demand fresh books. If the government’s directive is followed, students in Classes VI to VIII may have to spend several hours matching page numbers in the corrigendum with the textbook content. Instead of focusing on learning, they will first have to ensure that their books are accurate,” he said.
Maharana said the government spent nearly Rs 50 crore to print around 2.9 crore textbooks. “This is taxpayers’ money. At least six to seven committees were involved in preparing these books and the result is for everyone to see. The government should fix accountability, recover the losses from those responsible and reprint the textbooks,” he added.
