Teachers had pointed out several mistakes in both textbooks in May last year, but revised versions are yet to appear in the market; SSC students are stuck with the old ones
It has been almost a year since several blunders were discovered in the SSC history and geography textbooks, but new corrected editions are still not available in the market.
Students who have passed Std IX and typically start preparations for their SSC board exams with extra classes in the summer, are stuck with using the old texts riddled with errors.
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It is technically vacation time, but most schools conduct extra classes to give students a taste of the Std X syllabus. While the education department did send stickers with some corrections, students keep going to bookstores for the books, but to no avail.
Amit Halbe, who runs Halbe Agency, an authorised dealer for SSC textbooks in Girgaum, said, “Yes, the corrected version of the error-filled textbooks are not yet out.
Students who have started their SSC board studies in the vacation itself are asking for it. We have no clue when the copies will come in the market.”
Ajay Yadav, the manager at the state distribution centre for books in Goregaon, said, “When they haven’t even come to us, how can bookstores have them?” Yadav felt it was the fad of coaching classes that had spurred the early demand for textbooks. “It is good that the edited versions come late. At least the new books will have no errors,” he added.
The old history textbook had shameful blunders – it called Africans as “N*****s” or “N****s”, the Suez Canal as a “sewage area”, besides bungling up dates, and printing paragraphs that didn’t make sense.
The geography textbook had wrong maps. The Board of Studies was given a show-cause notice on May 22 and the entire panel was sacked the very next day.
Blunders galore
History horrors
>> Suez Canal is referred to as a “sewage area” and Burma as “Bhramadesh”
>> Africans have been referred to as “N*****s”
>> Guinea Coast has been printed as Gincoast and Cameroon as Kamarun
>> Dates of major events were wrong. Moreover, World War II, which had an entire chapter devoted to it in the old syllabus, was condensed into a paragraph
>> World War II started on September 1, 1939. But the books mention that it began with Hitler’s attack on Poland on September 15, 1939
>> Many paragraphs make no sense, while there is repetition of text in some chapters
Geography gone wrong
>> The map of India had missed out on Arunachal Pradesh, a state that China considers its own
>> There were several grammatical errors
Officialspeak
Bal Bharati is the official state bureau for production of textbooks for the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE). Vivek Uttam Gosavi, controller, in-charge of printing the state board textbooks at Bal Bharati, told mid-day, “MSBSHSE needs to send us the syllabus with corrections.
Only then can we start printing the books. We have not received anything from the SSC board.” However, the MSBSHSE chairman, G K Mhamane, was unavailable for comment, despite repeated attempts.
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