Personally know 500 teachers who hire substitutes: MP minister
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Raisen, Madhya Pradesh: Madhya Pradesh’s Minister for School Education Rao Uday Pratap Singh has ignited a controversy stating that 500 teachers who he personally know engage substitutes in their places, paying them Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000.
Attending the Shiksha Maha Kumbh, commemorating the birth centenary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee held in Bareli town of Raisen district, the minister further said ‘In my district alone, there are 100 such teachers’, according to NDTV.
‘I personally know of 500 teachers who hire substitutes to work in their place for Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000. In my district alone, there are 100 such teachers,’ Singh was quoted as saying.
The minister’s shock acknowledgement of teachers under his watch flouting norms raised questions about his inaction in the face of their blatant disregard for duty.
The Congress called out the minister with the party’s Leader of Opposition Umang Singhar stating that ‘This confession of MP's Education Minister is deeply concerning. Despite knowing about 500 dishonest teachers, why are you shielding them? If you cannot act against these individuals, you should resign.’
Singhar sought the minister to take action against the 100 teachers found to be engaging substitutes in the classroom.
The controversy comes after the minister shared the statistics about school enrollment in the assembly, which showed 1.22 million fewer students enrolled between 2016-17 and 2023-24 in government schools from Class 1 to 12.
The alarming statics showed that enrollment in lower classes (Class 1-5) dropped significantly by 635,434 students, and private schools also saw a fall of 926,051 students during the period.
Declining number of students notwithstanding, the government’s spending on school education has risen by 80 per cent from Rs 16,226.08 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 29,468.03 crore in 2023-24.
Meanwhile, the average spending per student in government schools more than doubled from Rs 16,672 to Rs 34,631 in the same period.
The minister linked the fall in students’ enrollment to factors including a reduction in the 0-6 age group population, ‘data purification process through child tracking and school dropouts’, according to the report.