Hundreds of Government teachers working in different districts of Uttarakhand are under the scanner of Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to look into the complaints of fake and forged degrees of teachers. Under the heat of the investigation many teachers have gone underground. In Haridwar district alone it is learnt that about 60 teachers working in different government aided schools are not reporting in the schools from quite some time.
In the investigation, the SIT has found that the educational qualifications of four teachers posted in a government aided school in Dehradun are fake. The investigating team has sought the approval of the education director of for lodging cases against these teachers. All these teachers have Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree from Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (HSS) Allahabad and lucknow.
The issue of the teachers with fake degrees came into open when a RTI activist submitted a list of 217 such teachers and demanded that their degrees should be checked. It is learnt that there is a syndicate of officers and employees of the education department which are involved in this fraudulent activity for long. later, degrees some teachers working in different schools of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts were found fake. Taking cognisance of the issue the State Government started a SIT probe on the matter.
It is learnt that there are hundreds of such teachers which have Prathama, Madhyama and Visharad certificates of Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (HSS) Allahabad. These degrees are not accepted in Uttarakhand but despite this there are many such candidates who not only managed to get jobs in connivance with the department officials but also have got promotions. Sources reveal that many teachers had used the Visharad and B.Ed degrees of HSS to get promotions.
In its investigation the SIT is going through the documents of thousands of teachers working in Government aided schools of the Haridwar, Dehradun, Uham Singh Nagar and Pauri.
The Education Minister Arvind Pandey had time and again reiterated that such teachers would be weeded out from the system. The Minister promptly suspended the Chief Education Officer (CEO) of Haridwar RD Sharma when he was informed that the district education department of Haridwar is not cooperating in the SIT investigation.
Meanwhile, the teachers are concerned on presence of black sheep among them. “It is very unfortunate that some people with fake or forged degrees have been able to get jobs in education department. But teachers alone cannot be blamed, whole system is responsible. Without the involvement of department officials it is not possible. Issue should be investigated from every angle and everyone involved should be punished,’’ said a teacher posted in Dehradun.