Mumbai: Geography book repeats history of errors, retired master tells board of map bloomers

MUMBAI: A retired teacher from the city has alleged that there are several errors in the state education board’s revised class XII geography textbook. The teacher, Vidyadhar Amrite, has written to the state textbook bureau, listing a dozen mistakes that need to be corrected.
Class XII textbooks for this academic year have been revamped and a digital version published to reach students during the lockdown.Now, they are also available in hard copy format.
Amrite has, on several occasions in the past, also pointed out errors in the geography textbooks and urged the department to get it proof-read by experts before printing the texts.
The errors, said Amrite, are in many maps printed in the book. For instance, he claims that in a world map showing major rice-producing regions on page 5 is incorrect. “Some of the areas shown as rice-producing regions are wrongly located. Some rice-producing areas like Java, New Guinea, Punjab-Sindh, Venezuela have not been shown,” he said.
He has also listed errors in maps used in the book that show industrial areas, commercial activities and transportation routes across the world. “A standard school atlas must be followed and the maps must be redrawn to correctly show various activities, railway routes etc correctly,” he said.
Vivek Gosavi, director of Bal Bharti said, “I have put forth the data to the respective geography textbook board of studies. They will scrutinise all points in the letter and after their recommendations, we will do the needful.”