After it was discovered that Telugu textbooks were carrying previous years forward referring to K Chandrashekhar Rao as the Chief Minister in this year’s book, the goof-up reportedly caused embarrassment to the Congress government.
The books, for classes 1-10 were carrying previous years’ foreword and were distributed among students of state-run schools when they reopened on June 12 after the summer vacation.
Sources on Friday, June 14, claimed that the officials initially sought the textbooks to be returned. Still, they now suggested pasting the foreword page on the backside of the (inner) cover page so that the reference to the previous government is not visible.
When contacted, a senior Education Department official on Thursday said a particular textbook was not distributed to students as some rectifications are to be carried out but did not elaborate.
On Friday, the Telangana State United Teachers Federation sought the state government to conduct an inquiry and take action against officials responsible for the error.
The Federation General Secretary Chava Ravi alleged that the error was due to the negligence of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) officials.
He said the government should inquire into the matter and take action against those responsible.
Ravi recalled that, in another act of alleged negligence, the Preamble of the Constitution was published on the cover page of a school textbook without the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ last year.
The opposition BRS on Thursday attacked the Congress government for allegedly withdrawing textbooks meant for distribution to government school students as they contained reference to KCR.
BRS MLA and former Education minister P Sabita Indra Reddy asked whether it was justified to “withdraw the books or tear off the pages or paste another page on it because they had KCR’s name.”
