New Delhi: Teachers’ groups and parent organisations in Odisha have raised an alarm over widespread mistakes in the newly revised textbooks for classes one to eight in the state. The revision process was carried out in adherence to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.The list of errors include “spelling mistakes, incorrect names of eminent personalities, and factual inaccuracies to wrong photographs,” PTI reported.“Instead of the Odisha Legislative Assembly, a photograph of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly has been used. In another case, Berhampur has been incorrectly identified as a district, though it is actually a city in Ganjam district. There is no district named Berhampur,” Brahmananda Maharana, president, Odisha Primary School Teachers’ Association, told The Hindu.Maharana alleged that there are a total of 1,678 errors in the published books.According to a reported published in The New Indian Express, the number of mistakes in the class eight textbooks are highest at 705.Among other mistakes, Niyamgiri hills, home to the Dongria Kondh, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, have been wrongly placed in Jharkhand rather than Odisha. Similarly, an image of the Unesco World Heritage Site Vijaya Vitthala Temple in Hampi has been featured in place of Odisha’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Konark Sun Temple, Dongria tribe is referred as “Dongaria”. In an English text book, “greatest” is spelt as “gretest,” the TNIE report added.Also read: The Crisis of Courage in India’s Liberal Universities“These are not mistakes, but crimes. The government must take responsibility. It cannot play with the future of students,” Basudev Bhat, president of the Odisha Parents’ Federation, was quoted as saying by TH.He also flagged the practical problem with any corrective action, underlining that a reprint alone would take three months, with distribution adding another three on top of that.“Even if they decide to reprint books, it will take three months to complete the process and an additional three months to supply the books,” he added.As per the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA), the textbooks were prepared by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) as an “experimental edition” for the academic session 2026-27 in line with NEP 2020. The books have already been distributed among elementary-level students across all districts.“Why was the department in a hurry to print and distribute the books without carrying out the necessary proofreading? A probe should be launched into the matter and appropriate action taken against those responsible for such errors,” Maharana was quoted as saying by TNIE.School and mass education minister Nityananda Gond admitted the lapses labelling it as merely “printing mistakes”.“As the textbooks were newly prepared, there might have been some printing mistakes,” Gond was quoted as saying by PTI.Calling it a “national embarrassment, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) spokesperson Lenin Mohanty demanded that all the “defective textbooks” should be withdrawn. He asserted that “such errors not only undermine the Odia language, literature and culture, but also jeopardise the future of students”.