AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government, during the opening day of the monsoon session, acknowledged that 134 teachers in the state are absent without authorised leave.
Ten teachers have already been dismissed and action is pending against the others.
The three-day session, the first since the Lok Sabha and assembly by-elections, saw the opposition challenging the government regarding absentee teachers and those living abroad.
During Wednesday's Vidhan Sabha session, Congress MLA Kanti Kharadi raised a question about how many teachers in Banaskantha and Patan talukas have been living abroad and receiving salaries as of August 10, 2024.
In response, the Education Minister provided details, prompting Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar to further question the government's action on absentee teachers in Gujarat's primary schools.
“The data revealed that 176 teachers have gone abroad, with mathematics and science teachers being the most frequently absent,” asked Parmar.
The Education Minister in response admitted that since 2019, 134 teachers have been absent without permission.
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"70 teachers are on unofficial leave, and 60 have gone abroad. The claim that most mathematics teachers are on foreign trips is false, and no salaries have been paid to teachers on unauthorised leave," the minister further clarified.
Government data reveals that 12 government primary school teachers from Banaskantha district in North Gujarat have been abroad for over six months, along with 7 primary school teachers from Patan district, and one Granted secondary and higher secondary school teacher. Notices have been issued to nine of these teachers, while two have resigned and one has been forced to step down.
Notably, a recent case emerged involving Bhavna Patel, a Gujarat native and government primary school teacher, who, according to official records, resides in the US while continuing to draw her monthly salary without performing her duties.
Several similar cases have surfaced, where proxies were found working in place of the actual teachers on the payroll. This revelation has sparked questions from the opposition
‘Ghost’ teachers settled abroad, but still on Gujarat payroll:-
More than 50 teachers in Gujarat’s government schools have migrated out of the country, but many of them reportedly continue to draw salaries from the government; not only are they not teaching children, they are not even present in their schools, or in the country.
They are only the tip of a very large iceberg. The State government recently suspended nearly 135 teachers who have not attended school or done any teaching work for more than nine months. The State education minister said that “stern action” will be taken against such teachers, who will be dismissed from their jobs.
Absent for eight years
The government action was prompted by local media highlighting the case of Bhavna Patel, a teacher in Banaskantha district has been absent from duty for eight years and has, in fact, settled in the United States, but still continued to draw her salary from the government.
Officials said she has not received salary continuously as reported by the local media. The State Education department, however, is yet to provide details about how could she could have remained absent from duty for so many years without being detected by the system. Her salary was reportedly stopped only from January this year.
Another case in Banaskantha is that of Darshan Patel, who has settled in Canada but continues to remain on the payroll in his native State as a teacher in a village in Vav taluka of the district.
State of education
Subsequently, more such cases have came to light in Mehsana, Kheda, Kutch, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and several other districts, raising questions about the functioning of the State-run education system.
The Education department has now directed all district primary education and administrative officers to terminate the services of such teachers before the end of this month.
The department has requested detailed information from district primary officers (DPOs) regarding teachers who have been absent for more than three months, including their name, school, reason for absence, leave approval status, and salary disbursement.
Missing in action
In Kutch alone, more than a dozen teachers who were absent for a year or more will have to be dismissed from service. “There are 17 teachers who were missing for more than a year and they are in the process of being terminated. Out of 17 missing or ghost teachers, 12 are women and five men and three out of 17 have reportedly settled abroad,” a government official said.
According to officials, missing or ghost teachers have cited various reasons, including “social service”, “health issues”, or other “personal reasons” for their protracted absence from duty. In the case of female teachers, many have responded to the State’s show cause notice by citing marriage-induced shifts of location as the reason behind their absences.
The problem is not limited to interior and far flung districts like Kutch or Banaskantha. In the State capital of Gandhinagar and the surrounding district, 15 teachers are missing or have been absent for a long time; a dozen of them have reportedly migrated out of the country.
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Chronic problem
“We are serious about it and will take all necessary action against such teachers,” Gujarat Education Minister Kuber Dindor had said in response to the local media reports about the large number of absentee teachers in State-run schools. “We are strict [about] weeding out missing teachers and enforcing accountability and will not tolerate such negligence,” the Minister had added.
However, this is not a new problem In Gujarat, where such ghost teachers have been a common concern for years. In a previous instance, the State government had fired more than 100 teachers who had failed to report for duty for more than a year without informing the authorities.
Between 2015 and 2022, nearly a thousand teachers in primary or secondary schools were missing without informing the authorities and almost 150 teachers had shifted out of the country. The State government had terminated the services of around 180 such teachers in 2022.
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Centralised tracking
After complaints about teachers skipping their classes or not turning up at school at all, the State government had set up a centralised command and control centre called Vidya Samiksha Kendra, to track the attendance of more than five million students enrolled in over 30,000 government-run and grant-in-aid schools, in which there are almost 2.5 lakh teachers whose attendance is tracked through GPS-enabled devices.
After the media reports about missing teachers in Banaskantha and elsewhere, the State government claimed in a press statement that the absence of such teachers had been caught through its state-of-the-art command and control centre.
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