Indian textbooks affected by odd deficiencies

Thanks to attentive readers and their public reaction, a set of mistakes in Indian textbooks could be discovered and measures to correct them be started.

A delicate case is a typo in a language textbook from the state of Gujarat. The Christian community pointed out a passage where Jesus Christ was termed a devil instead of a god which resulted in a protest directed at the textbook board. Officials promptly changed the online version for the better but stated that it is not possible to correct the printed versions since they already have been distributed to students all across the state.

Another questionable advice was found in a Hindustan textbook that concerns the writing of e-mails: “Email messages should be like skirts – short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover all the vital points.” Surprisingly, this statement has been used by over ten years and remained undiscussed till recently.

Further deficient declarations were found in a physical education textbook, defining a bunch of body measurements as the “best body shape for females” or in a history textbook, stating that Bhagat Singh – a freedom fighter against the former British occupation in India – was a “revolutionary terrorist”.

Editorial staff (sz)

Sources

Photo credit: Children at school, India by melgupta / CC BY-SA 2.0
Information sources: huffingtonpost.in, hindustantimes.com