Weeks after 1,678 errors were found in newly introduced textbooks in Odisha, leading to the suspension of top education officials, the state government on Saturday ordered a Crime Branch probe into the entire process of preparation and publication of textbooks, with Chief Minister Mohan Sharan Majhi directing the director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to file a first information report (FIR) to fix criminal liability.
The decision to refer the case to the Crimes Branch came after Majhi’s statements that there was a “conspiracy” that might be behind the factual inaccuracies, conceptual errors, and typographical and grammatical errors.
Last month, a high-level committee headed by Development Commissioner DK Singh submitted its report on these errors. Following this, the government suspended former SCERT director Manoj Padhi and three assistant directors while starting disciplinary proceedings against six other assistant directors for alleged lapses.
The scale of the errors sparked widespread criticism from teachers, parents, educators, and opposition parties.
The fifth-grade literature textbook claims that infertile women can regain fertility by circumambulating the Sitapinghi cave in Keonjhar district. Another mistake is the placement of the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha in Jharkhand. In many books, the illustrations do not match the accompanying text and scientific concepts are presented inaccurately.
The errors were found in 55 textbooks prepared by the Directorate of Teacher Education and SCERT under the Odisha Curriculum Framework for School Education 2025, which was drawn up in line with the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020.
The books, which cover subjects including Odia, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Mathematics, Social Science, Geography and Skills Education, have been printed in nearly 29.6 million copies for around 5.3 million students studying in 49,259 primary schools across the state.
The unprecedented number of errors arose from a hasty overhaul of the curriculum, insufficient time to prepare manuscripts, faulty translation of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) materials and deviations from the prescribed textbook development process, people familiar with the matter said.
The entire process of preparing all 55 textbooks was completed in just 15 months as the state sought to roll out the new curriculum simultaneously across classes I to VIII.
The Crime Branch will investigate the entire chain of events that led to the publication of the defective textbooks, fix liability for the lapses and recommend legal action, if necessary, officials said.
