Indus Valley Times

By Pritish Chandra

Nabarangpur, Jan. 6: After 10 teachers of Malkangiri district lost their jobs, it is now the turn of 24 teachers of Nabarangpur district who have been disengaged for remaining absent from their duty for over 12 years. They all have been disengaged from their jobs.

These teachers had been absent from their duties for over 12 years. Acting on the recommendation of the district education officer (DEO), the district Collector took the action against these teachers.  The state school and mass education department had directed the DEOs to take action against those teachers who are absent from their duties without leave applications for years together.

Upon this, the DEO carried out an investigation and found that 31 teachers hadn’t been coming to their schools for years together. Following this, they were served with show-cause notices. While six of them clarified the reasons for their absence, the department received no clarifications from the remaining 24 teachers.

One such truant teacher had already resigned from his job before being served with show cause notice.

“In total, there were 31 such truant teachers. One of them had resigned from his job as he got a better job somewhere. We had served show-cause notices to the other 30 teachers. Of them, six teachers submitted their replies but the remaining 24 neither turned up nor responded to the notices. So, they have been dismissed,” said DEO, Nabarangpur, Pradeep Kumar Nag.

Notably, earlier as many as 10 junior teachers of Malkangiri district were dismissed from their services for remaining absent from their respective schools for 4 to 5 years.

These teachers continued to be on leave without informing their superiors. The department had served show cause notices to them and followed it up with several such notices.

Besides, newspaper advertisements were also published but none of them responded. Consequently, the District Education Officer (DEO) fired them from their jobs.