With the educational oversight that's stirred up a storm in Telangana, students across the state found themselves with textbooks carrying last year's foreword, still crediting K Chandrasekhar Rao as Chief Minister. The gaffe, discovered as schools reopened post-summer break on June 12, has left the current Congress administration feeling a tad sheepish.
Initially, officials scrambled to recall the textbooks to rectify the embarrassing error. However, a creative solution has emerged: tucking the outdated foreword discreetly on the flip side of the inner cover page, effectively masking any traces of the previous regime.
However, not all textbooks were deemed equal in this saga. One particular tome has been held back, awaiting last-minute amendments before joining its peers in circulation.
The Telangana State, United Teachers Federation, has wasted no time demanding accountability, insisting on a thorough investigation into what they call a clear case of negligence by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
This isn't the first time Telangana has grappled with textbook blunders. The Federation's General Secretary, Chava Ravi, recalled a similar slip-up last year when the Preamble of the Constitution hit the shelves minus the 'socialist' and 'secular' descriptors.
Meanwhile, P Sabita Indra Reddy, a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA and former Education Minister, has questioned the proportionality of pulling textbooks off shelves or resorting to crafty fixes to scrub away KCR's name.