350 teachers went missing from duty in 5 years: Gujarat govt

As disciplinary action, over this period, services of 128 government primary and secondary teachers were terminated and another 70 were served notices by district education officers, district primary education officers and administrative officers concerned.

Sources in the education department told The Indian Express Tuesday that in three years from 2019 to 2022, action was taken against 665 teachers for remaining absent from duty for long. Of these, 113 teachers were removed from service, too.

In these five years (2015-’20), departmental inquiry or chargesheet was filed only in the year 2019-’20 against 11 teachers and in 2018-’19 against two teachers by district education officers, district primary education officers and administrative officers concerned.

On a long-pending complaint of parents about teachers being absent, especially from interior and rural areas, the state education department in June 2019 launched a centralised Command and Control Centre in Gandhinagar.

The centre tracks attendance of nearly 2.5 lakh teachers and 70 lakh students in over 42,000 government and aided schools, besides monitoring the work of block and cluster resource co-ordinators and school inspectors through GPS-enabled tablets.

Education Minister Jitu Vaghani told The Indian Express, “This would go unchecked earlier… Daily attendance of teachers is monitored through the online portal… In case a teacher remains absent for long, the reasons for the same are investigated and necessary action as per the rules are taken promptly.”

Among districts, highest number of primary teachers who remained absent was from Narmada district with 50 teachers where 10 teachers were reported to have been missing from duty each year. This was followed by Banaskantha with 29 teachers — 13 in 2015-’16 and 16 in 2019-’20, and Anand with 27 teachers, and Kutch and Gandhinagar with 24 teachers each.

On the teachers travelling or settling abroad, Vaghani said, “It is not that all these missing teachers have gone abroad. There are chances but due to reasons such as health issues, retirement, death, resignation or transfer to other places, their names remain in the online attendance portal. The portal data on teachers who were absent for long during 2019 and 2020 was reviewed.”

As per the rules, a new teacher cannot be appointed or the teacher cannot be transferred till the teacher is on leave, as the post is not vacant.

Referring to it as a perennial issue, Gujarat Primary Teachers’ Association president Digvijaysinh Jadeja said, “The problem is not going
on long leave but not resuming duty after leave is over. Teachers who take leave for six months and does not report to duty, chances are that they have settled abroad.”

Gujarat Primary Teachers’ Association has been raising the issue of missing teachers from duty for long and had even led to a survey of such teachers by the state government.