JOIN USThe chairperson of the committee in charge of preparing the Class 10 second language English textbook under the Karnataka Textbook Society, P N Srinath has acknowledged the huge number of errors in the textbook.
Reacting to a Deccan Herald report that appeared on August 4, highlighting the presence of 70 to 80 errors in the textbook, he said the fault was “not entirely” of the people who prepared it.
Factors
“There were a number of factors that led to the errors and it would be wrong to put the blame solely on those who prepared it,” he added.
In a written statement, Srinath said that he had seen the errors and had brought it to the notice of the Director on June 13 itself. However, nearly three lakh copies were already printed and distributed in schools of North Karnataka, leaving him with no choice but to only print and send out a list of errata.
A list of 50 “printing errors” and 23 “punctuation errors” were pointed out in the textbook by Srinath himself.
He also gave a number of reasons that led to the printing of faulty textbooks.
These was a lack of a professional proof reader, presence of matriculate or non-matriculate persons “who were almost unaware of either structure or meaning of what they were typing” at the private press that printed the textbook, little time to print and pressure from authorities to bring out the book as soon as possible.