THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government is all set to launch a thorough inspection in aided schools where managements are facing charges of inflating student numbers and using it as a pretext to arbitrarily create new teaching posts, thereby burdening the already-strained exchequer.
According to a source in the Finance Ministry, the Finance Inspection Wing will begin checks in aided schools to ascertain the veracity of appointments made by aided school managements to teaching posts. “The inspection team will primarily check whether the Unique ID-based student strength provided by the managements is accurate. They will also check irregularities in appointments of teachers on the basis of fudged student data,” said the source.
A thorough check
The need for a thorough inspection in schools reportedly figured in the cabinet discussion and the General Education Department is understood to have hesitantly agreed to such a check. Ironically, the inspection by the Finance Department comes at a time when the General Education Department already has a full-fledged machinery in place to check such irregularities.
“The government has taken a policy decision to take away the right of approving new teaching posts from the District Educational Officers (DEOs) and Assistant Educational Officers (AEOs). Hence, a thorough check by another department, especially the Finance Department, seems logical,” said a senior official in the General Education Department.
According to the Finance Department, over 18,119 teacher posts were created in aided schools without following set procedures. In his budget speech, Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac had said that these appointments were made at a time when the services of 13,255 ‘protected teachers’ were already available.
Managements sceptic
Meanwhile, the aided school managements see the government’s new exercise as a ploy to create a “smokescreen” and thereby implement a temporary freeze on new appointments. “The aided school sector is functioning quite well. In times of financial crisis, the government might have identified the aided school sector as a soft target,” said Nazar Edarikode, secretary of the Kerala Private (Aided) School Management Association.
“In the wake of the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, aided schools have appointed around 3,500 teachers on the basis of the increased student strength. These teachers have been languishing without salary since 2016. We suspect the government’s move is to create commotion and deny these teachers their salary till its term in office gets over,” Nasar said.