Imphal, Feb. 18: A students? organisation today imposed a ban on the sale of textbooks in Manipur citing ?mistakes and wrong facts about history? in the editions brought out by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur.
The Democratic Students Alliance, Manipur, (Desam) war-ned stall-owners across the state against selling textbooks for Classes I to V. The board has taken the responsibility of publishing the textbooks for all the government and private schools, including missionary schools, from this year?s academic session.
The students had served an ultimatum to the Ibobi Singh government asking it to spell out the steps taken to correct the flaws in the texts by Friday. It had demanded that the government set up a review committee comprising experts and leading citizens of the state within the deadline to look into the mistakes. The government took up the issue with Ibobi Singh, calling a meeting of the education minister, education officials and representatives of various student groups on Monday.
Leaders of All Tribal Students Union, Manipur (Atsum), All Manipur Students Union (Amsu), Manipuri Students Federation (MSF) and the Democratic Students Alliance, Manipur, attended the meeting, which ended in a deadlock.
Volunteers of Desam today inspected bookstalls to enforce the ban. They warned of action against shops found selling the banned books. A Desam leader said they have not confiscated any book today but warned that they would seize books which are carrying wrong facts.
On February 13, the student activists had burned textbooks outside the gate of Imphal College to register their protest against the mistakes.
The All Manipur Students Union had organised a two-day conference recently to thrash out the differences. Experts at the meeting recommended that the errata be published in a booklet and distributed to the students. But the Desam rejected the suggestion saying some chapters on Manipur?s history needed to be re-written. The students had found the blots in books pertaining to history, Manipuri, environmental studies, English and mathematics.
The board has also called a two-day workshop from Friday to resolve the impasse. Teachers will avoid the chapters in which the mistakes have been detected till the crisis blows over.