Alirajpur (Madhya Pradesh): In a classic case of misuse of position, a school principal of the government girlsí higher secondary school in Alirajpur engaged unqualified persons, including her son as visiting faculties to teach information technology and health care subjects to the students. If this was not enough, the principal made payments to these unqualified persons from the government funds.
The matter pertains to Government Girls Higher Secondary School situated near the bus stand in Alirajpur town and came to the fore from details got through the Right to Information Act.
According to the information received, vocational training courses- IT and healthcare subjects are being taught to the students of class IX and class X. The school in-charge principal Zakia Khan engaged her son Almas Khan for teaching the IT subject.
The principal made a payment of Rs 1,400 to Almas by cheque dated November 16, 2018. At that time, Almas was pursuing a bachelor of computer application (BCA) and his degree was completed in May 2019.
Similarly, one Megha Rathore was also engaged as a guest teacher to teach IT and the payments of Rs one thousand and Rs 1,500 were made on December 24, 2018, January 22, 2019, and August 30,2 019 respectively, while her BSc graduation degree completed in October 2020.
According to local sources, the in-charge principal ignored all the parameters set by the education department to make payments to these teachers.
Almas Khan and Megha Rathore are not the only cases of such illegal appointments, the principal engaged yet another person, Mamta Hinge as a guest teacher in health care on August 24, 2018, November 15, 2018, and August 8, 2019, and made a payment of a total of Rs 3,000, even when she was pursuing graduation at that time and completed her degree course in nursing in November 2019.
All the cheques given to three guest teachers have been withdrawn from the Central Bank of India Alirajpur. There are some other names which seem to be engaged for teaching as the guest teacher only on papers.
In the RTI it was also revealed that the qualification certificates of the concerned appear to have been forwarded and received on WhatsApp and the printouts of these certificates are also not legible.
More than 20 guest teachers were called and payments were made from the government account by bearer cheque bypassing government rule. Guest teachers were paid an honorarium for one day's lecture. But in the RTI, certificates of eligibility of only eleven teachers were provided.
When contacted senior officials of the department either did not pick up the phone calls or appeared to shift the onus on others.
Attempts to contact National Secondary Education Campaign, additional director Kamna Acharya and additional assistant director Neeraj Saxena in Bhopal proved futile as neither did they pick the phone nor replied to the messages.
Meanwhile, when contacted Alirajpur district education officer Arjun Singh Solanki said that it does not come under his jurisdiction but under the department of tribal affairs.
On being contacted, Department of Tribal Affairs assistant commissioner Janaki Yadav told that she does not have any information about the same as the matter is of 2018 and 2019 and she was not there at that time. She can reply only after going through the documents, Yadav said.
