Assam to weed out 'ghost schools and teachers': State education minister

GUWAHATI: After "ghost students", Assam is planning to weed out "ghost schools and teachers", state Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said on Sunday. Special grants to schools which failed to provide complete information about staff have been put on hold, with salaries of such employees to be stopped in next two months, he said.

Addressing a press conference here, Pegu said, "We had already detected ghost students. Now, there could be ghost schools and teachers." Ghost students, schools and teachers are those which exist only on paper. It is done to obtain government funds for various purposes. Around 4.50 lakh ghost students in government and private schools were detected in the state in June during reconciliation of enrolment figures with that of the previous year.

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Pegu said over 11,000 lower and upper primary government schools have failed to provide complete data of their staff, comprising both teaching and non-teaching, as sought by the department. "The information was to be uploaded on a specific portal 'Shikshya Setu'. After cross checking with our records, we have found that 11,483 schools have not provided details of all staff. "Until they upload all the details, we will put on hold Annual School grants and Sports and Physical Education grants for 2023-24," he said. The minister also announced sanction of grants for the schools which have provided all information.

"Now we are putting on hold the grants. If they don't give the details, salaries may also have to be stopped from August or September," he said. He pointed out that only basic details like educational qualifications, joining date, transfers, etc. were sought. "If they can't provide even those few details, the government cannot pay them salary out of public money. We are accountable to the people," Pegu said. While 2.08 lakh teaching and non-teaching employees of these schools have uploaded their details, about 35,500 are yet to do it.

"When the majority have uploaded, suspicion naturally arises why the others couldn't do it. Some may have genuine reasons and hence, we urge them to give the details immediately," he said. Schools which complete uploading the data will instantly get the grants, the minister said, though he did not specify any timeframe for doing so.