The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on Friday carried out surprise inspections in offices of the Public Education department following complaints that certain officials had been indulging in corruption related to appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff in aided schools, regularisation of appointments, passing of grants for managements and creation of posts. The checks were carried out at the Public Education Directorate, district educational office (DEO) and assistant educational offices (AEO) across the State.
Though each district educational office receives 200 to 300 applications related to various matters, only around 10% are cleared, while the rest are delayed for bribes, as per information gathered by the VACB. Some managements have also been creating posts of teachers disproportionate to the number of students, which are being cleared by some officials in the educational offices after accepting bribes, according to the complaints.
The Vigilance team found that undue delay on files were made in the DEO offices at Neyyattinkara, Kalpetta, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram as well as the AEO offices at Wadakkanchery, Mannarkkad and Kalpetta. More investigations will be done in cases where illegal creation of posts have been noticed.
