A senior teacher with over 20 years of experience and government awards for excellence has been unceremoniously transferred after he exposed irregularities in his school.
Transfers is not new for this 45-year-old teacher, Nilesh Patel, who believes in practising the virtues of honesty and integrity. Very popular among students, he is not in the good books of all those who reduce education to yet another business. The result has been that he has been transferred six times in the last two years.
Patel alleged that he discovered irregularities within an association of primary teachers in Valsad.
Patel claimed to have objected to the collection of Rs 2,500 from each teacher by the association and demanded receipts for the payments.
Currently, Patel is employed at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) in Valsad. Until 2022, he served at Manda Nanakapada Primary School in Umargam.
Hailing from Samroli village in Navsari, Patel is part of a community where around 150 people work as school teachers across various locations. His previous assignments include schools in Ghotva, a village on the Gujarat-Maharashtra border, Mrugmal village and Sorathwad.
In July, Patel was transferred to Asura Primary School at his request. Although officially posted there, he continues to work at DIET, Valsad.
Ketan Patel, principal of Nankapada School, stated to a media section, “Thanks to Patel’s efforts, our school now has 482 students, up from just 140. He secured land and expanded the school campus.”
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