Odisha Urges Jharkhand to Republish JHTET Odia Syllabus in Native Script

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has expressed concern over the publication of the Odia language syllabus for the Jharkhand Teacher Eligibility Test (JHTET) 2026 in Devanagari script and has urged the Jharkhand authorities to reissue it in the original Odia script.

In a letter to the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC), which conducts the JHTET, Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the Odia Language, Literature and Culture Department, Rashmita Panda, termed the move “highly regretful.”

She requested the Council to republish the syllabus in Odia script, pointing out that other languages such as Bengali have been published in their respective native scripts.

The letter highlighted that Odia is one of the 22 Scheduled Languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India and is also among the 11 languages recognised as classical languages. It stressed the need to treat Odia on par with other Scheduled Languages.

The Odisha government also referred to a representation submitted by Nandu Kumar Pandey from Jharkhand’s Saraikela-Kharsawan district and others to Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, seeking intervention in the matter.

The representation demanded the republication of the Odia syllabus in Odia script, inclusion of prose and poetry passages, and the release of model question papers in Odia script, in line with other languages.