Bhubaneswar, June 16 (IANS) The opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Congress on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the State government over serious errors found in the newly published Odia textbooks for Classes I to VIII, alleging that the glaring mistakes expose the deterioration of Odisha’s education system under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty described the textbooks as a “national embarrassment” and alleged that they constitute a direct assault on the Odia language, culture and the future of lakhs of students.

He said the BJP government, which frequently raises the slogan of “Odia Asmita,” has exposed its complete failure through the textbooks.

According to Mohanty, the new textbooks prepared by SCERT Odisha under Odisha Curriculum 2025 for Classes I to VIII contain nearly 1,678 identified errors. The highest number of mistakes — 705 — has been found in the Class VIII textbooks alone, including 294 errors in Jijnasa, 114 in Sanskrit, 25 in Social Science, and 31 in Literature, as well as several significant errors in English and Mathematics.

He alleged that the mistakes go beyond typographical errors and include serious spelling mistakes, factual inaccuracies, geographical distortions, incorrect names of historical and literary personalities, and wrong photographs and captions.

Citing examples, Mohanty said a photograph of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly has been presented as that of the Odisha Legislative Assembly, the Niyamgiri Hills have been shown as being located in Jharkhand, Ganjam district has been referred to as Brahmapur district, and the names of noted Odia personalities such as Sunanda Patnaik and Pandit Nilakantha Das have been misspelled.

He said the errors would mislead students about their history, geography, culture and identity.

He further alleged that the School and Mass Education Department attempted to cover up the lapses by hurriedly issuing a correction list, exposing negligence and a lack of accountability.

The BJD has therefore demanded the immediate withdrawal of all defective textbooks, a high-level inquiry into the negligence involved in their preparation and proofreading, an investigation into the officials and ministers responsible, and the publication of error-free textbooks before the next academic year.

Similarly, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das also targeted the State government, saying the administrative failure is “a mockery of the State’s education system” and “a direct insult to Odisha’s rich history, geography and culture.”

The party has demanded the immediate withdrawal of all textbooks from Class I to Class VIII containing inaccuracies, a transparent and time-bound investigation into the SCERT review board to punish the officials who approved these textbooks, and the resignation of the State School and Mass Education Minister or issuance of a public apology for the glaring errors.

–IANS

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