Previous year’s foreword thanking former Telangana CM KCR used in this year’s school textbooks

SCERT in Telangana embarrassingly used previous year's foreword in textbooks, including names of former ministers, prompting reprinting discussions.

In an embarrassment to Congress Government in Telangana, the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) used the previous year’s foreword in the Telugu textbooks this year with the names of former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and former Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ministers.

The foreword thanked ‘Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’ and Education Ministers in the previous BRS government; G Jagadish Reddy, Kadiyam Srihari and Sabitha Indra Reddy apart from the officials heading the Education Department in the BRS government.

It had the names of Rajiv Ranjan Acharya, Chiranjeevulu and Jagadeeshwar, all of whom headed the department as Principal Secretary and Commissioners of School Education respectively. In fact, all these officers also retired.

The foreword thanked KCR for his guidance and advice, as well as the ministers and officials. The foreword was copied from the previous print and used for this year’s new books. The SCERT did not even change the date December 5, 2022 and copied it for the books printed in 2024.

The fiasco was noticed while the Ministers distributed the books to students during the schools’ reopening where they also distributed uniforms. Officials then asked the school teachers to tear off the page containing the foreword before distributing it to students. The negligence of the SCERT was clear in the episode.

Meanwhile, officials have called for a meeting on Friday and a decision will be taken on reprinting the books or printing a new foreword and pasting it on the lakhs of books printed so far.