Education dept may notify Everest's new height on portal

Kolkata: The state Education department is contemplating to notify the change in the height of Mount Everest through its education portal as the school text books for the upcoming session have been already published. In those text books, the height of the world's highest mountain has been printed as 8848 metres.

On Tuesday, Nepal and China jointly announced that the height of Mount Everest is 0.86m higher than the previous measurement.

"We are waiting for the exact height to be notified by a competent authority. After that, we will ensure that the change is notified to the students at the earliest," said Avik Majumdar, chairman of Syllabus Restructure Committee.

A senior official in the Education department said it would not be a good idea to roll back the text books, which had already been printed.

"We might inform our school and teachers through the education portal (banglar shiksha.gov.in). The teachers can inform the students about the amended height during class," said the official.

Citing an example, the official said when Burdwan district was divided into East and West zones, the change was printed on the textbooks only after the maps of the two demarcated districts were released.

"The Madhyamik Board and the Higher Secondary Council provide us with all necessary details of the syllabus at the school level on the basis of which we take up the job of book publishing. We will proceed in this regard only when there is a notification," said Biswajit Ghosh, general secretary of Bangiya Prakashak O Pustak Bikreta Sabha, which monitors text book printing at the school level.