State syllabus textbooks from classes 1 to 10 could do with a round or two of editing and proof reading. A team of experts, appointed by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education, to look into the quality and veracity of the study material, found 170 errors. These include grammatical and spelling errors, errors in dates, page numbers, incorrect use of photographs and missing letters, not just in the chapters, but also in the exercise section appearing at the end of every chapter.
The team has submitted a report of its findings to the Department of Public Instruction. An official said some of the errors had been made during translation. For instance, the English-medium class 7 social science textbook states “leakage of wealth”, instead of ‘drain of wealth’. Some of the spelling mistakes made in the environment science book include “animals are rered” instead of animals are reared.
Sources in the Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) said that a corrigendum had been sent to Block Education Officers, which will be passed on to school principals, who will in turn communicate the same to teachers and students. “They will be asked to make corrections in the textbooks,” an official said.
The maximum errors, 81 of them, were found in the social science textbook. While the majority of errors were in the English-medium social science textbook with 53 mistakes, the Kannada-medium textbook had 27, and the Urdu-medium book had one mistake.
These textbooks had been reviewed by 27 committees made up of close to 170 members, which was headed by writer Baragur Ramachandrappa, before they were re-printed for the 2017-18 academic year. This review was done after complaints of saffronisation.
However, after complaints of typos and errors in the physical education class 10 textbooks started pouring in, another team was set up to scrutinise the content. There was a major furore when the textbook stated that P.V. Sindhu won the “bronze medal” instead of the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said this showed the quality of the revision process and urged the departments to initiate action against those who were involved in revising the textbooks. “Even minor spelling mistakes in textbooks is a matter of concern as students learn everything from it and consider it the gospel,” he said.
Department officials said that no action could be taken against those involved in the preparation of these books as they did it on an honorary basis.
