Around 150 govt teachers missing from schools in Gujarat, many have settled abroad

The state government has ordered a probe into the matter.

Ahmedabad: The Bhupendra Patel-led Gujarat government has launched an investigation into around 150 teachers being absent from schools without any notice.

Over the past one week, several schools in the state have pointed out a number of teachers who have not been attending schools, with many of them settling abroad or on unauthorized leaves for years and months.

Late on Tuesday night, the state government said in a statement that "a total of 134 teachers have been given show cause notices and action have been taken for their dismissal". The government defended its state-of-the-art Control and Command Centre (CCC) for schools saying that based on its report, absentee teachers were caught.

The minister of state for primary, secondary and adult education Praful Pansheriya said that by Monday, at least 32 teachers were identified to have gone abroad while 31 were on unauthorized leaves.

Defending the government, he said that none of them were getting salaries. This is contrary to several reports suggesting that many such teachers were drawing salaries. 

Referring to media reports of last few days, Pansheriya told reporters that information gathered from 17 district by Monday stated that 32 teachers were abroad and 31 were on leave without permission. He said that department was collecting information from other districts and action will be taken against such teachers in accordance with the law. 

Earlier this week, a teacher from Banaskantha district was found to be staying in the United States for several years and was getting salaries until January this year. Similar instances have come to light in other districts. Despite repeated attempts, officers of state education department did not respond for comment. Calls and messages to Pansheriya and principal secretary, primary and second education, Mukesh Kumar remained answered. 

Sources said that the number of teachers who have gone abroad could be as high ass 50 while nearly 100 have been found to be on leave without permission. Meanwhile, opposition Congress has alleged that "this is a well-organized scam and the state government should take action against such teachers."

Congress said that this is happening despite a state-of-the-art Control and Command Centre (CCC) for schools in Gandhinagar, which works as a surveillance system to keep a tab on activities of teachers and students across the government run primary schools. The centre claims to be monitoring over 50,000 schools and "hand-holding of 4 lakh teachers to help improve learning." The centre was claimed to be working as a real-time online monitoring of attendance and working of teachers in government and grant-in-aid primary schools.

The BJP government said that criticism of CCC was "baseless" as "it has helped increase the presence of students as well as teachers". The government said in a statement that after introducing online system, the attendance of students increased by 80 per cent, while attendance of teachers rose by 10 per cent.