DEOs told to recall Telugu textbooks

During a teleconference, district educational officers were instructed to withdraw all first language Telugu textbooks of classes 1 to 10 both distributed and undistributed immediately.

Hyderabad: After a major faux pas in Telugu textbooks that had foreword thanking former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, the School Education Department on Thursday directed the officials concerned to recall the Telugu textbooks.

During a teleconference, district educational officers were instructed to withdraw all first language Telugu textbooks of classes 1 to 10 both distributed and undistributed immediately.

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The Abhyasa Deepikalu (workbook), which has a mention of the former minister’s name in foreword, will be withdrawn as well. The department is learnt to have told the officials to paste a new foreword, which will be shortly circulated among the government and local body schools, over the old one.

Until then, officials have been directed to keep textbooks and workbooks in safe custody.

The textbooks developed by the State Council of Educational and Training had a foreword that thanked former Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and several colleagues from his erstwhile Cabinet including Jagadish Reddy, Sabitha Indra Reddy and Kadiyam Srihari for their guidance and advise in developing the textbooks.

Even, former Education Department secretary Ranjeev R Acharya, former School Education directors M Jagadeshwar and T Chiranjeevulu, and former advisor to government KV Ramanachary were mentioned in the thanking note.