Teachers, cheaters? Many jack up marks to land govt job in Karnataka

Does a student learning “Never lie, never cheat…” from his teacher know that the very same teacher does not believe in what he teaches?

Some teachers, who are supposed to instill good values and morals in our children, are ending up as wrong-doers just to land a job. In order to be selected for the state high schools, these teachers are providing wrong information about their educational qualification.

Recently, the state education department had invited applications to 2,700 posts for teaching staff at state high schools (upgraded) for Classes 9 and 10. It turned out that most candidates provided wrong information, tinkering especially with the marks secured in SSLC, PUC and BEd.

The responsibility of filling up the vacant posts was assigned to an agency called ASTRIX. Candidates were asked to apply online and for 2,700 posts, the agency received about 65,000 applications.

“We were surprised by the overwhelming response. But when called for document verification, many candidates were found to have provided wrong information in their application form,” said an official from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

However, the department officials are not authorised to punish applicants for providing wrong information because recruitment was outsourced to the private agency.

“If we were filling the posts directly, we would have definitely asked them for explanations. Some candidates called it an error as they had filled the form online,” said an official.

All errant applicants were sent back with a warning at the time of document verification.

 “It seems, some candidates did it unmindfully while some, intentionally. It is common for people to think that they can explain the discrepancy at the time of the interview if the application is accepted and get away with it. But we made it clear to them that it amounted to malpractice and only merit will be given preference,” he said.

The process was expected to be completed by August-end but got delayed because of fake candidates. According to officials, as of now, about 83% of eligible candidates had been posted to various locations while the process for a few more was still on.