While everybody knows that education cess had been levied on every individual income tax payer to fund the ambitious Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) all over the country, very few people are aware of the howler in the scheme.
One such blunder came to light in Bihar when it was noticed that the textbook of mathematics meant for students of Class V contained pages from geography book of Class VII. The students studying arithmetic suddenly came across geography terms like duniya gol hai in their maths book. These books, meant for the schools under SSA, were published by Bihar State Textbook Publishing Corporation.
Brishen Patel, state HRD Minister, admitted that mistakes had been committed in the two textbooks. “Action has been taken against the printer who was also responsible for the binding of over three lakh textbooks,” said Patel. He asserted that it was not a printing error but it happened in course of binding as wrong pages were inserted in maths textbook.
As per the rules, the responsibility of checking the contents and quality of the textbooks lies with the State Council for Education and Research Training (SCERT), but apparently, it too erred.
Taking cognisance of the “human error”, Patel has asked his ministry to stop payment to the firm responsible for this lapse. “It’s contract has been cancelled and no work will be allotted to the firm in future,” the minister assured.