Aadhaar helps HRD ministry dig up 80,000 ghost lecturers

NEW DELHI: Following its decision to use Aadhaar as proof of identity for the collection of data on teachers employed in universities and colleges, the HRD ministry has found at least 80,000 'ghost' lecturers employed with the higher education institutes surveyed for the annual survey on higher education this year.

This was revealed by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar while unveiling the results of the survey and launching a national teachers' portal called 'Gurujan'. The portal will be a repository of information on teachers who were individually profiled in the annual survey called All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE). "So far only 85% teachers have given their Aadhaar numbers and we have found 80,000 cases in which lecturers were listed as employed with more than one institutes," the minister said. "In some cases, we found teachers employed as lecturers in as many as 4 institutes," he added.

Javadekar said while the ministry will soon take action on these 'fake' teachers, this is a call for the remaining lecturers to take submit their details. "The information will remain safe with the government, there is no question of data being leaked because their Aadhaar numbers have been revealed," he said. Of the estimated 15 lakh teachers employed with higher education institutes, the ministry has so far managed to profile 12.68 lakh teachers, he said.

HRD officials added that the information on the portal will help the government map areas where there are less teachers and also gauge the quality of faculty employed in colleges and universities.

The government has been conducting the annual All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) since 2011 and every institute has been providing generic data on their teaching staff. As part of its efforts to make the data-collection accurate and specific to certain requirements, the ministry has for the first time sought individual profiles of the teachers and Aadhaar details. As part of data collection, a new Teacher Information Format (TIF) was introduced "to collect data on teachers profile to create 'Gurujan' (gurujan.gov.in).