In Bhubaneswar, the Odisha Parents’ Federation organized a “Sikhya Satyagraha” to demand that government schools stop providing children in Classes I through VIII with textbooks that are riddled with errors. Members of the Federation organized the demonstration in order to demand remedial action for what they saw to be a grave error in the creation and dissemination of textbooks. They said that there were several mistakes in the texts and that this had embarrassed the state’s educational institution.
Prasanna Bisoyi, a member of the Federation, stated that the protests will go on until the flawed textbooks were removed. “The errors in the textbooks show a really careless and insensitive error. According to the federation, such mistakes can seriously affect students and damage the state’s reputation. The parents’ group called the incident a “black chapter” in the history of Odisha’s educational system and requested that the government recall the defective textbooks and give kids updated versions right once.
Additionally, the federation made more general objectives about educational access. It requested that children from economically disadvantaged groups be granted free education from Class VIII to Class XII under the 25% clause of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. It also argued that students should have access to skill-based education in addition to traditional academic courses and called for the inclusion of vocational education in the government’s free KG-to-PG education program. According to the federation, the government should act right away to resolve the textbook issue and make sure that such mistakes don’t happen again. It insisted that the “Sikhya Satyagraha” would go on until its demand to have the books with errors removed was fulfilled.
