No Photos of Them Cheating. But 1,500 Bihar Teachers Have Quit.

Patna: It was the photos of parents and other friendly parties scrambling up the walls of an examination centre to help students cheat that brought new and even international attention to an old problem in Bihar - its decrepit education system.  

Attempts to uncover how deep the rot runs have forced a sort of confession - in the last month, 1,500 teachers have resigned from state-run schools to avoid being indicted for faking degrees to land their jobs.
 In June, the Patna High Court told the government to check  a claim  made in a public interest litigation or PIL that of the current 3.5 lakh teachers at state-run schools, 40,000 have lied about their educational qualifications. For the last 10 years, Bihar has been governed by Nitish Kumar, who now confronts questions about why teachers were allowed to cheat their way into jobs, the obvious collusion with government officers, and the lack of any corrective course.  

The court had earlier said teachers who resigned within a month, owning up to fake degrees, would be exempted from criminal investigation. This week, judges said that amnesty period stands closed.

In Jehanabad, 50 kms from the state capital of Patna, 70 teachers have stopped showing up to work. One of them "did not inform me, I read it in the papers," said Amrikan Sharma, principal of a middle school.

In April this year, NDTV  exposed how teachers checking Class 12 exam papers from Bihar's Saharsa district were clueless about the subjects they were marking. Some couldn't spell "mathematics"; others were unable to explain who Shakespeare was.

Officials in Bihar's education department refused comment on camera, saying the case is in court. To add to Bihar's problems, the state is already short of nearly two lakh teachers for state-run schools.