Taking the shield of illness or any chronic disease to get transfer to desired place could now backfire for Government schoolteachers as the education department has started the process of handing over compulsory retirement to such employees. In a meeting of education department officials held at Vidhan Sabha auditorium on Thursday, Education Minister Arvind Pandey took exception to the fact that there are many teachers and employees in the Education Department who are not physically and mentally fit due which they regularly abstain from work and those who do attend their duties are not discharging them properly. The Minister told the officials that the teachers or employee who present certificate of medical board mentioning some critical illness to them should be handed over notices for compulsory retirement.
Acting on the orders of the minister the Director General (DG) education, Captain Alok Shekhar Tiwari (Rtd) has directed all the officers to submit a list of such employees that were handed over the notice for compulsory retirement till July 31. In the meeting the education minister directed that those teachers/ employees applying for transfers on the basis of critical illness should be examined by medical board. The department intends to deploy similar methodology for those who seek exemption from election duty on the basis of illness.
The department officials informed that there is a clear cut provision for providing compulsory retirement to the teachers or employees suffering from critical diseases under a Government Order (GO) dated January 20, 2002. However the provisions of the GO are yet to be implemented.
The Education Minister has clearly shown his intension to get rid of such chronically ill teachers and employees so that younger and fitter candidates could be inducted to replace them. It is learnt that the department has already started a process to identify such teachers and employees.
The Education Minister has also asked the officials to properly investigate the applications for admission in reserved seats in schools under universal Right to Education (RTE) act so that ineligible candidates are kept away from securing seats meant from economically and socially backward categories. The department has decided to observe academic year 2017-18 as ‘Year of ensuring quality in education’ and for it the Minister has directed the officials to continuously monitor the schools.