Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Muni-cipal Corporation (BMC) has suspended 20 teachers from its schools in the city for their irregular attendance over the last two years and alleged manipulation of the biometric system to show them as present when they were not.
According to officials of the civic body's education department, the teachers would allegedly mark themselves present in the biometric system after which they would leave the school premises. The teachers have also been accused of extending their leaves on a regular basis. The alleged irregularities came to light during an inspection conducted by the BMC of its 1,500-odd schools.
The teachers who have been suspended belong to schools in Dharavi, Wadala, Sewri, Bandra, Chembur, Matunga and Vikhroli. BMC education officer, Mahesh Palkar said, “We have biometric attendance system for the staff and teachers in our schools. Even after being absent in the schools, several of them were marked
'absent' which means that they manipulated with the biometric system. The moment we found about this activity being conducted in the schools, we suspended all those who were involved and have also issued an inquiry to know more about this matter.”
Mr Palkar said that all these teachers have been suspended for now. "After the inquiry report, we will decide on whether to take the teachers back or terminate them," he added. According to the data released by a senior official of BMC's education department, several teachers out of these 20 have been reported to be 'absent' for the last three years as they were on 'leave'. Even after being absent for all these years, many of them marked themselves as 'present' in the school's attendance log.
A senior official of the BMC's education department (secondary section) revealed that from the beginning of this academic year, 2017-18, the department has initiated surprise inspections in all its schools. "These inspections are mostly conducted by high level officers or beat and administrative officers of each ward. Their primary duty is to check whether the school is providing mandatory provisions to its students along with quality education. It also includes checks on whether the teachers are doing their job properly or not," he added.
