Hiring of 6,247 assistant teachers being verified

BHARARISAIN (CHAMOLI) : The Uttarakhand government has said that educational certificates of 79 assistant teachers have been found “suspicious” and were being probed by a Special Investigation Team. Replying to Mussoorie MLA Ganesh Joshi, education minister Arvind Pandey said that appointments of 6,247 assistant teachers recruited between 2012 and 2017 were being verified.
Pandey said that verification of documents of 867 assistant teachers was complete. “Certificates of 79 assistant teachers were found suspicious and are being probed by the Special Investigation Team,” he said, adding that eight teachers had been suspended, while services of 27 have been terminated. Seventeen teachers of Udham Singh Nagar district have approached the court in this matter.
Pandey also said that 1,766 government schools in the state had libraries which were being managed by the school staff as there were no separate posts for librarian or assistant librarian.
In reply to a query raised by BJP MLA from Jhabreda, Deshraj Karnwal, whether uniforms had been made available to children from SC/ST and financially weaker sections, Pandey said that Rs 25.6 crore had been released for the purpose. At this, Karnwal said that Rs 400 for two dresses each year was a small amount since the tailor alone took Rs 300 for stitching. The education minister welcomed the suggestion and said that efforts would be made to increase the amount.
Congress MLA from Ranikhet Karan Mahara raised the issue of disparity in fee structure in government and self-financed BEd colleges. Mahara said that while government institutes charged a fee of Rs 4,000, the self-financed ones took Rs 70,000. The minister of state for higher education Dhan Singh Rawat replied to him saying that there are lesser number of students in 17 self -financed BEd colleges in the state so lack of resources has rendered it difficult to change the fee structure.