The Gujarat teacher who 'came' to her school every day from Chicago

Several principals were posted to the government school in Paachi village during the last eight years and were transferred after their stint was over. Nobody, however, complained about the absentee teacher who continued to draw her salary without attending the school or engaging classes. She couldn’t because she had relocated to the United States and had been living in Chicago.

While it is not clear if Bhavana Ben Patel ever returned to Banaskantha, in the records she mysteriously continued to appear once every month at the Education department’s office to claim her salary for the entire year. Equally mysteriously, her attendance also was recorded daily in the records.

Poor Bhavna Ben Patel may or may not have been complicit. She may or may not be the beneficiary either. However, since nobody complained or because no complaint was registered, no inquiry was ever conducted.

The present lady principal, however, is made of sterner stuff and she would have none of it. She complained in writing earlier this year and demanded that the teacher should either be dismissed or forced to turn up and engage classes.

If that was not possible, she wrote, the errant teacher be at least transferred and the post declared vacant and filled up with a regular teacher. The daring principal also went on camera to speak and gave an interview to Gujarat-based media outlet Vibes of India, repeating the allegations.

As the bizarre case made headlines, the district education office claimed that it had taken action as soon as it learnt about the case in June this year. The errant teacher has now been served with a show cause notice and instructions have been given to stop her salary, the officer told the media outlet.

This, however, may not be the only case of ghost teachers in Gujarat schools. The ghost rolls have been reported from almost every state and the racket is rampant because government school teachers are paid much more than teachers in private schools; and besides they are also entitled to pension and other benefits.

Even one ‘ghost’ teacher in half the government schools in states, shown engaging classes and paid the salary to a ghost account, works out to a tidy sum. Such rackets have been reported in the past and requires a thorough investigation by an independent agency.

The media report did tickle a few to look at the brighter side of the story. ‘People in Gujarat are lucky to have NRI teachers and can proudly boast that their school has engaged a teacher from the US to teach them English!’ was one of the several comments to the report posted on X.

Someone wondered why a teacher sitting in Chicago could not engage an online class in Gujarat and digitally mark her attendance (primarily because when it is 10 am in India, it is 11.30 pm in Chicago the previous day!).