Maharashtra textbook bureau gets maps wrong in textbooks

An academician and former member of the board of studies of the Maharashtra board, has alleged there are several glaring errors in the textbooks which recently entered the market again.

After facing flak for publishing Class 10 textbooks with mistakes in 2018, Balbharti, the state’s textbook bureau, has come under the scanner yet again, thanks to error-ridden maps and graphs in its revised Class 11 textbooks for history and geography.

There are error ridden maps and graphs in revised Class 11 textbooks for history and geography. (HT photo)

In a letter addressed to Balbharti, Vidyadhar Amrite, an academician and former member of the board of studies of the Maharashtra board, has alleged there are several glaring errors in the textbooks which recently entered the market. “While showing ocean currents in the Indian Ocean, the current that flows into the west of Australia is only the cold current, which flows from south to north, which has been shown as a warm current flowing from north to south. Similarly, the direction of the south equatorial current has been wrongly depicted,” reads the letter.

Amrite said that even after pointing out that two comparative graphs need to have the same range in their respective X and Y axes on multiple occasions, the recent text has the same inconsistency. “There are two graphs which show the comparison in temperatures of Shimla, India and El Alto, Bolivia, where there are a common set of questions that students have been asked to answer. The temperature range on Y axes of both these graphs is different, which should not be the case. Besides, negative values (sub-zero temperatures) have been plotted above the X axis which is wrong,” said Amrite.

“Every time, the syllabus is revised, there are glaring errors in textbooks, which are then communicated to schools in a correction list. The education department should take more caution before printing the texts to ensure that such mistakes can be avoided beforehand,” said a teacher of a Bhandup-based school.

Rajeev Patole, special officer, Balbharati, said, “All our maps and graphs are approved by the survey of India. After we get objections, our expert committee reviews it and verifies the content in question again. Only if it finds that the error pointed out is valid, a correction is made and schools are told to make the necessary change. We are yet to look at the objections.”