Newton the Pilot & Moving Hills: Odisha’s New NEP Textbooks Redefine Science, Geography, and More

Odisha’s School and Mass Education Department has garnered attention as 1678 spelling, factual, and contextual errors into the new Odia textbooks for Classes I to VIII have come to light. Introduced for the 2026-27 academic session, these books were supposed to align with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. 

Instead, they have managed to redefine the laws of science, history, and geography altogether.

Newton, apparently, was a ‘great pilot’

For starters, budding young scientists in Odisha are now learning that Sir Isaac Newton was not a physicist, but a ‘great pilot.’ The textbook also clarifies a crucial historical mystery, explaining that Newton once famously boiled "water"— where the actual historical anecdote involves him mistakenly boiling his pocket watch instead of an egg.

The geography section offers an equally adventurous tour of India. Thanks to the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), the Niyamgiri hills have packed up and moved to Jharkhand, while a picture of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is casually passed off as Odisha's own. That, unfortunately, is not all, a photograph of the Hampi temple complex now represents Odisha’s iconic Konark Sun Temple in the book.

Basic words also received a creative makeover. Some of the interesting swaps include, wheat written as paddy, glass as cup, temperature as pressure, food web as food cycle, and equinox as equator. Class VIII students hit the jackpot of confusion, inheriting over 700 of these errors, though English, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Urdu textbooks.

Opposition slams the oversight

The opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has sharply criticized the oversight, calling the rollout a "national embarrassment". Former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik criticized the administration for treating the education of lakhs of children as an experiment, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the flawed materials.

In response, School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond explained that the textbooks had to be prepared within a very short timeframe following the state's transition to the new education policy, which led to the editing and printing oversights.

As schools reopen, the education department has rushed to issue a comprehensive corrigendum (a formal list of corrections) to all government schools so teachers can manually correct the mistakes in classrooms. However, parent associations have expressed deep concern, noting that getting fully revised, reprinted textbooks into the hands of students could take several months, threatening to disrupt a significant portion of the academic year.

Also Read: Mumbai's Water Crisis: Only 40 Days of Stock Left