Bhubaneswar, 26 June (H.S.): The Odisha government has initiated disciplinary action following the submission of the inquiry report into errors detected in school textbooks for the current academic session. The three-member committee, headed by the Development Commissioner, submitted its report to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, who acted on the panel's recommendations immediately.

Based on the committee's findings, the government has suspended former Director of Teachers' Training and State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Manoj Padhi, along with three Assistant Directors—Pralipta Mishra, Dilip Kumar Sahu and Bharati Tudu—for their alleged role in the lapses.

In addition, disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against six Assistant Directors—Bandita Pattnaik, Manas Ranjan Rout, Manoranjan Mahapatra, Dr Prashant Kumar Sahu, Manas Kumar Nayak and Dr Sudarshan Santara.

The committee was constituted after several factual, language and editorial errors were detected in school textbooks, triggering widespread criticism from teachers, parents and other stakeholders. It was tasked with identifying the officials responsible for the lapses and recommending measures to prevent such errors in the future.

Accepting the panel's recommendations, the state government has decided to implement all 14 corrective measures proposed by the committee to strengthen textbook preparation and quality assurance.

As part of the reforms, SCERT will publish a Master Errata Register within seven days and provide corrected information to all students through replacement pages, reprinted inserts and printed correction sheets wherever necessary. The corrected PDF versions of the textbooks will be treated as the official teaching material, while teachers across the state will undergo immediate orientation on the revised content.

The government has also approved the establishment of a dedicated Textbook Quality Assurance Cell in SCERT to strengthen academic scrutiny and quality control. Subject-wise Curricular Area Groups and book-specific Textbook Development Committees will be constituted on the lines of the NCERT model. A four-stage proof verification system and a final locked PDF mechanism will be introduced before textbooks are sent for printing to minimise the scope for errors.

The committee has further recommended creating a Public Errata Portal to ensure transparency and introducing a system of accountability through responsibility matrices for every error. Show-cause notices will be issued to the concerned DTP agencies, printing presses and approving authorities, while provisions for penalties, performance evaluation and blacklisting of defaulting vendors will also be implemented.

The report also recommends pilot testing of every new textbook before publication. In a major procedural reform, the government has decided that no textbook will be sent for printing in future without obtaining final academic, language, factual, image and production clearances.

The Odisha government said the measures are aimed at restoring public confidence in the state's school education system, ensuring error-free textbooks and establishing a robust quality control mechanism for future publications.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Monalisa Panda