Use of identity system reveals 130,000 ghost lecturers

The decision to use Aadhaar – a 12-digit unique identity number issued to all Indian residents – as proof of identity in the annual collation of data on teachers employed in higher education has led to an uncomfortable discovery: nearly a 10th of them turned out to be ghost teachers, writes Prashant K Nanda for Livemint.

While the good news is that this will lead to a focus on improving the quality of teaching, the bad news is that the country has just found out that understaffing in higher education institutions is far greater than what has been estimated so far.

Around 130,000 teachers were found to be fake, two people familiar with the details of the study said on condition of anonymity. India has about 1.4 million teachers in colleges and universities. The key concern is that institutions are duplicating teachers’ data while seeking regulatory approval for courses or expansion of institutions and not recruiting fresh teachers, said one of the two officials. The details of the study will be unveiled sometime later this month.
Full report on the Livemint site