Brand page to go off school book

Bhubaneswar: Following protests from different sections of society, the Odisha government has decided to remove the specific page which carried text and pictures of various branded food and drink products, from the social studies textbook of Class III.
The State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) has asked all school authorities to ensure that teachers are properly sensitised about the issue so that they do not demonstrate or teach content from the page to students while teaching.
The page 1 of the book carried a few pictures to help students pick up reading exercises and students had to identify the products from the pictures. But to the surprise of parents and educationists, the page contained pictures of various popular food and beverage brands.
Stating it as degradation of content in school textbooks, several voluntary organisations demanded the study materials to be revised and altered with immediate effect.
Parents alleged that though the government has asked to remove the page, the book contains several other glaring mistakes, which the authorities concerned failed to notice.
“We urge the government to correct and revise the textbooks as we cannot allow children to learn wrong things. We appeal to the state government to ask the content writers to be serious while writing books for children. Besides revising content, all necessary changes should be incorporated in the book,” said Sanghamitra Jena, convenor of the Save Education Save Odisha Campaign.