Two months on, board looks to textbook errors

Almost two months ago, secondary and higher secondary teachers identified factual and printing mistakes in Std VIII and Std XI textbooks at a workshop but the Gujarat State School Textbook Publication Board (GSSTPB) chose to sit on them. ‘‘It’s impossible to withdraw the textbooks but we can inform teachers about these mistakes,’’ GSSTPB chairman Madhubhai Patel said. The board has planned a special section on ‘‘important mistakes to be immediately rectified’’ in its monthly magazine, which is distributed to all schools.

The errors were first pointed out by teachers at a workshop in August over the textbooks as the syllabi had been revised this year. The fallout of the workshop, in which more than 2,000 teachers across the state took part, is a report containing a list of mistakes. The GSHSEB will soon begin revising Std XI and Std XII syllabi.

‘‘There is not a single textbook without mistake. There are factual errors, spelling and grammatical mistakes and even wrong representations,’’ a Std VIII History teacher, who attended the workshop, said.

GSSTPB chief Patel admitted there are errors but added they were only ‘‘printing mistakes’’. He said: ‘‘The next set of books for 2005 will have no mistakes at all.”