More than 50 teachers in Gujarat government schools who have migrated out of the state are still drawing salaries from the government; not only do they not teach children, they are not even in school, or in the country.
They are just the tip of a huge iceberg. The State Government has recently suspended nearly 1,350 teachers who have not attended school or been on teaching duty for more than nine months. The state’s education minister said “stern action” would be taken against the teacher, who would be fired from his job.
Absent for eight years
The government’s action was prompted by local media that highlighted the case of Bhavna Patel, a teacher in Banaskantha district who has been absent from duty for eight years and, in fact, has lived in the United States, but continues to draw a salary from the government. .
Officials said they did not receive their salaries continuously as reported by local media. The State Department of Education, however, has yet to explain how he managed to remain absent from duty for so many years without being detected by the system. His salary has reportedly only stopped since January this year.
Another case in Banaskantha is that of Darshan Patel, who has settled in Canada but remains on salary in his native country as a teacher in a village in Vav taluka of the district.
state of education
Further, more such cases have been found in Mehsana, Kheda, Kutch, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and several other districts, raising questions about the functioning of the state-run education system.
The Department of Education has now ordered all primary education officials and district administration to terminate the services of these teachers before the end of this month.
The department requested detailed information from the District Office (DPO) regarding teachers who have been absent for more than three months, including name, school, reason for absence, leave approval status, and salary disbursement.
Missing in action
In Kutch alone, more than a dozen teachers who did not attend for a year or more had to be dismissed from service. “There are 17 teachers who have been missing for more than a year and are being dismissed. Of the 17 teachers who are missing or ghosts, 12 are women and five are men and three of the 17 are said to be living abroad,” said a government official.
According to officials, missing or ghost teachers have cited various reasons, including “social service”, “health problems”, or other “personal reasons” for their absence from duty. In the case of female teachers, many of them responded to the news of the state event by citing a change of location caused by marriage as the reason for their absence.
The problem is not limited to the interior and remote districts like Kutch or Banaskantha. In the State capital Gandhinagar and surrounding districts, 15 teachers are missing or have been absent for a long time; twelve people have reportedly migrated out of the country.
Chronic problems
“We are serious about this and will take all necessary action against the teacher,” Gujarat Education Minister Kuber Dindor said in response to local media reports of many teachers being absent in the state’s schools. “We are strict (about) removing missing teachers and taking responsibility and will not tolerate such negligence,” said the Minister.
However, this is not a new problem in Gujarat, where ghost teachers have been in the limelight for years. In an earlier instance, the State government had dismissed more than 100 teachers who had failed to report for duty for more than a year without informing the authorities.
Between 2015 and 2022, almost a thousand teachers in primary or secondary schools disappeared without informing the authorities and almost 150 teachers have moved out of the country. The State Government has terminated the services of about 180 such teachers by 2022.
Centralized tracking
Following complaints about teachers skipping class or not attending school, the state government has set up a centralized command and control center called the Vidya Samiksha Kendra, to track the attendance of more than five million students enrolled in more than 30,000 government schools. and grant schools, where there are nearly 2.5 lakh teachers whose attendance is tracked through GPS-enabled devices.
Following media reports of missing teachers in Banaskantha and elsewhere, the State government said in a press statement that none of the teachers had been caught through a sophisticated command and control centre.
