Bhubaneswar: Amid mounting criticism over errors in school textbooks for 2026-27 academic session, the Odisha School and Mass Education Department on Wednesday assured students, parents, and teachers that the corrected versions of these books will be made available shortly.
Speaking to the media, School and Mass Education Secretary N Thirumala Naik stated that the state government is treating the issue with utmost seriousness. “Experts and educationists are currently reviewing the mistakes, and once corrections are finalised, revised textbooks will be uploaded on the department’s official website for easy access,” he said.
Naik emphasised that the Chief Minister has taken personal note of the lapses and that the government remains committed to upholding high standards in educational materials. He added that the review and scrutiny processes for future textbook production will be significantly strengthened to avoid recurrence of such issues.
The department is reportedly working round-the-clock to resolve the matter at the earliest.
He appealed to students, parents, and teachers not to panic and to continue using the existing books until the official corrected editions are released.
The Education secretary further claimed that the errors have been exaggerated in media. “Errors in the textbooks are much less than what have been reported so far. Some errors mention on media and social media platforms are subjective,” he added, citing an example.
The controversy erupted after reports revealed around 1,678 errors across 55 new textbooks prepared by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) for Classes 1 to 8 under the new curriculum aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Odisha Curriculum Framework. These include glaring factual inaccuracies — such as describing Isaac Newton as a “great pilot” — grammatical and spelling mistakes, incorrect captions, wrong photographs, and geographical or scientific errors. Class 8 textbooks reportedly contain the highest number, around 700-705 mistakes.
The errors have affected nearly 40 lakh students and sparked outrage among teachers, parents, and educationists.
In response, the Chief Minister ordered a high-level inquiry, leading to the formation of a three-member committee. Several officials, including the former Director of Teacher Education and SCERT, have been suspended, with disciplinary action initiated against others for gross negligence in the preparation and review process.
Meanwhile, critics have pointed to rushed publishing timelines, heavy reliance on copying NCERT content, inadequate proofreading, and ignored concerns during the development phase under the new curriculum. Some reports noted that even the initial corrigendum list issued by authorities contained additional errors.
