Teacher challenges textbook errors

A high school teacher who challenged the "authoritative" People's Education Press about its errors in a textbook said on Wednesday that the publisher's recent apology on its website is not enough, and he will still take the publisher to court.

The announcement came after Peng Banghuai, a Chinese language teacher, in Zhengzhou, Henan province exposed more than 30 mistakes in the textbook to the media in November.

The Beijing-based publishing house released an announcement on its official website on Friday, apologizing for six mistakes in the textbook on Chinese language for the seventh graders published in May. The mistakes range from wrong words and punctuation to style errors.

"Due to hasty editing and proofing in a limited period, such problems have appeared … Textbooks should not include mistakes for any reason. We feel so sorry about that," said the announcement.

"The apology lacks sincerity. The press should apologize through the national media," Peng told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Peng said that he found the mistakes in September when the new semester began.

"Some students regard the wrong words as right ones and their parents suspect our teachers are making mistakes since we don't follow the textbook," Peng said. In October, Peng contacted the press and one leading editor of the textbook told him that "the textbook is authoritative."

Peng then sued the press. On November 11, the Jinshui District People's Court in Zhengzhou accepted the case.

"Before Peng exposed the mistakes, the press had received similar feedbacks from some teachers. We admit some mistakes and asked them to teach students the correct versions," an official from the press told the Beijing Youth Daily on Tuesday.

The official said it's impossible and without precedent to recall the textbooks. He promised to correct the mistakes in a new printing next year.

"Textbooks should have no mistakes since they influence students," said Huang Shuyuan, president of the Beijing-based People's Publishing House. "If textbooks have serious mistakes, they should be taken off the shelf or recalled, but currently there are no specific recall regulations."

Textbook publishing is a monopoly industry involving various interests and political concerns. In many areas of China, local education authorities appoint particular presses to publish textbooks, Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow with the National Institute of Education Sciences, told the Global Times.

"Without supervision, efficiency and professionalism are lax. Competition should be introduced to make textbooks more diverse and to give students more choices," Chu said.