Bhubaneswar: Amid widespread outrage over largescale errors in Odisha school textbooks, the three-member committee formed by the state government to probe the matter has found that lack of orientation and proper review and scrutiny had led to lapses.
The panel reportedly held the Directorate of Teacher Education and State Council of Educational Research and Training (TE and SCERT) primarily accountable for the mess.
At the same time, it also called for fixing administrative responsibility on the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) if it was found that a quality clearance certificate was not obtained and the textbooks were not audited before distribution, TNIE reported.
The panel also sought determination of supervisory responsibility at the department level in the School and Mass Education department if an unrealistic or excessively compressed timeline was prescribed for the preparation and printing of the new textbooks.
Following detection of 1,678 factual and typographical errors in the textbooks meant for students of Classes I to VIII for the 2026-27 academic session, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on June 17 ordered the formation of the committee and a high-level inquiry, besides directing stringent action against those responsible for the mistakes.
The three-member committee headed by Development Commissioner D K Singh was formed. Odisha Language, Literature and Culture Secretary B K Upadhyaya and GA department officer Smita Pani were its members.
According to the report, the preparation and distribution of new textbooks for Classes I and VIII, following the implementation of the National Curriculum Framework-2025, was done in a phased manner over a period of 2007-12.
However, the task of developing 55 new textbooks, translating and contextualising NCERT books was undertaken within a much shorter timeframe, in just one academic year (2025-26), before they were introduced for all classes at a time in 2026-27.
In the previous edition, orientation sessions for writers and experts were conducted for two days, but no such formal orientation was done for translation and contextualisation while developing the new books in 2025-26.
This apart, in the previous development cycle, all language textbooks were reviewed by the Odia Bhasa Pratisthan, which was not done in the present case. No written records were also found regarding oversight of the development process by any senior supervisory officer.
The committee observed it would be improper to limit the responsibility to a mere ‘printing mistake’ and made it clear that the Directorate of TE and SCERT and its then director, Manoj Kumar Padhy, were responsible.
The committee is of the opinion that there was a lack of coordination between the director and assistant directors-cum-coordinators, resulting in a vitiated work atmosphere,” the report stated.
The panel opined that the then director did not put in place a proper oversight mechanism, resulting in such large-scale errors and causing embarrassment to the government. Of the 15 assistant directors-cum-coordinators of SCERT, at least nine failed to perform their duties with due diligence and responsibility.
The committee also sought fixing of responsibility on the authors and translators of the books concerned, subject reviewers, language editors, textbook coordinators, conveners and the final academic approving authority.
Noting that academic scrutiny of the books was inadequate, and fact-checking and image verification were poor, the panel said there was also negligence in language editing and proofreading.