TN begins scrutiny of teachers’ certificates after forgery case

Chennai, July 20 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Tamil Nadu education department has commenced a scrutiny of the educational qualifications of teachers working under it. Several teams have been constituted for this.

The education department officials during a routine inspection of a school in Tiruvallur district stumbled upon the records of a government school teacher who was working there for fourteen years. The mark lists of the teacher on verification were found to be forged.

The teacher, Ravichandran (58) was working at Madathukulam panchayat union primary school since February 29, 2008, after he had completed a diploma in teachers training.

The officials conducted an inspection of the certificates of all teachers in the school on Tuesday and found that the certificates and mark lists of Ravichandran were forged and tampered with.

Chief Educational Officer K. Raman who was leading the team of officials reported the matter to the police. The teacher was arrested on Wednesday morning and will be produced before a judicial magistrate court. An education department official told IANS that the teacher's police custody will be sought for getting further details about how he was able to forge his mark list.

After the arrest of the school teacher, the department commenced scrutiny of all the teachers in government service.

G. Padmanabhan, Director, Socio-Economic Development Foundation, a think tank based out of Madurai, told IANS that, "This is a shocking development and will give a bad reputation to the Tamil Nadu education system. I've come to know that the education department has commenced scrutiny of all the certificates of teachers who have joined the service. It has to be properly studied how such a person got into the service and whether some insider had supported his entry. There has to be a major crackdown at the grassroot level to eradicate this menace."

Source: IANS