Maharashtra: MLC wants ED probe in teachers’ recruitment

A teacher in a Mumbai school earlier in January 2022, when schools had started re-opening after the Covid lockdown. Representation pic

Nago Ganar, a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) from Nagpur's teachers' constituency, on Saturday, demanded an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe into controversial teacher recruitments done across the state in recent years. Marred with irregularities, the school teachers' appointment and approval process across Maharashtra has been a hot topic of discussion in the ongoing monsoon session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

Stressing for ED's probe, Ganar alleged that it is a massive scandal involving "thousands of millions of rupees that cannot be probed at the local or district level". "No concrete actions were taken even today, as irregularities are being found in teachers' appointment and approval. This is a massive scam which is now beyond local police and district or state education officials, hence I have demanded an ED probe in the matter," he said.

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Nago Ganar

After May 2, 2012, the state government prohibited the recruitment of teachers in primary, intermediate, and upper secondary institutions. It also conducted investigations into irregular recruitments. In a 2015 survey, the government claimed to have discovered many incidents of "irregular recruitments" and extra teachers at various educational institutions. Many schools were discovered to have fictitious students who were paid in the guise of excess teachers.

As per the circular of February 23, 2017, instructions were given to all regional and district officers to adopt the inquiry procedure against irregularities taking place in individual approvals accorded to teaching and non-teaching staff in the state.

"There are legal vacancies for teachers in schools across the state, however, many appointments made are illegal. There have been cases where wrong dates of appointments and approvals have been put on record. For example, orders of appointments made in 2019 and even 2022 are shown pre-dated in 2016, 2017 etc. This is being done even when teachers' appointments were stopped in May 2012. I have heard that nearly 25 to 30 lakhs are paid for a teacher's post. This is a huge nexus and hence a national-level probe is needed to resolve this," added Ganar.

Currently, there are 42,503 teacher posts vacant across the state since 2012, when the government prohibited recruitment. The recruitments restarted through the portal in 2019, but were stopped after the pandemic.

The Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE) recently disqualified 7,880 candidates for their involvement in the manipulation and tampering of marks in the 2019-2020 Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET). While 7,500 of the 7,880 candidates allegedly tampered with the results in exchange for money to show themselves "eligible" in the results of the final exam, 293 candidates secured forged or fake certificates projecting themselves as eligible candidates after the final results.

"Due to all these malpractices and irregularities so many posts of teachers are vacant. Students across the state have suffered, and the government has failed to take note of this. We have reached out to the school education department multiple times since 2012, however, even after a decade, there has been no resolution to the issue," said Sunil Shejule, coordinator of Marathi Shala Sansthachalak Sangh and a member of Marathi Abhyaas Kendra.

42,503
Teachers post vacant in the state since 2012, after the recruitment process stopped