Aadhaar exorcises 80,000 'ghost' teachers

More than 80,000 ghost teachers have been found in India's higher education institutions after the Central government tallied their details with their Aadhaar numbers recently.

In 2017, the Human Resource Development Ministry had told colleges and universities to furnish the 12-digit identification numbers of all their teachers. So far, 85 per cent of all teachers across the country have shared their Aadhaar numbers and out of these, 80,000 have been found to be ghost teachers – teachers that use proxies and are on the rolls at multiple institutions.

However, these teachers are mostly from private institutions and largely technical institutions, sources said. According to officials in the ministry, the impetus behind this practice is approval or expansion of courses at educational institutions. A certain limit is set on these by regulators, according to teaching strength, and institutions have been duplicating the data of teachers to secure approvals from regulatory authorities and green-light approval or expansion of their courses.

While the government has not decided on what action to take against ghost teachers, Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar said recognising the number of ghost teachers was a good step as this will lead to corrective steps.