Vigilance probe bares ghost student scam in Kannur schools

A major welfare fraud has been uncovered in Kannur district, where at least 16 schools inflated student numbers on paper to retain teaching staff and siphon off government resources. The shocking revelation was made by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau after a confidential investigation spanning over eight months, triggered by secret intelligence inputs.

Following the discovery, the Vigilance department submitted a report to the state government, seeking permission to register criminal cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the erring schools and staff.

According to the Vigilance report, the fraud was concentrated heavily in 11 schools under the sub-district educational offices of Payyannur, Madayi, Taliparamba North, Taliparamba South, and Irikkur. Similar irregularities were also detected in several schools across Kannur and Thalassery. The primary objective behind fabricating these student numbers was to prevent a fall in divisions, thereby protecting redundant teaching posts and ensuring that government-paid teachers remained employed at these institutions.

The investigators found widespread tampering in official records, including daily attendance registers, admission books, and mid-day meal logs. The names of non-existent children, or those enrolled elsewhere, were fraudulently added to the databases. By inflating the student strength on paper, these schools claimed extra government welfare benefits, causing massive financial losses to the state exchequer through the misappropriation of free school uniforms, textbooks, and daily mid-day meals.

To execute the scheme, school authorities collected personal details of children studying at other institutions and recorded them as active students on their own rolls. The daily attendance registers were then systematically rigged to show that these children were present in class. In one egregious instance, investigators found that details of children studying in central government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas were stolen to create fake profiles. Another record falsely showed that a student physically attending a school in Kasaragod district was simultaneously studying at a school in Kannur. In a Thalassery-based school, administrators had gone as far as creating 19 fake student profiles within a single classroom.

The preliminary investigation indicates that headmasters and designated class teachers actively colluded to orchestrate the scam. Vigilance officials have confirmed that a full-scale, comprehensive probe will be launched as soon as formal corruption cases are officially registered.