Row erupts over sacking of teacher by edtech firm

Edtech platform Unacademy sacked teacher Karan Sangwan for urging students to vote for educated candidates. The move sparked backlash from opposition leaders.

Edtech platform Unacademy sacked a teacher, Karan Sangwan, for appealing to students to vote for educated candidates and not those “who only know how to change names,” saying the classroom is not a place to share personal opinions and views. Sangwan released a video on Thursday evening confirming his sacking.

HT Image

The move drew responses from opposition leaders. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal posted in Hindi on the social media site X (formerly Twitter): “Is it a crime to ask people to vote for educated people? I respect people who are uneducated. But people’s representatives cannot be uneducated. This is an era of science and technology. Uneducated public representatives can never build modern India of the 21st century.”

Roman Saini, the Unacademy co-founder, posted on X on August 17, “We are an education platform that is deeply committed to imparting quality education...we have in place a strict code of conduct for all our educators to ensure that our learners have access to unbiased knowledge...The classroom is not a place to share personal opinions and views, as they can wrongly influence them...we were forced to part ways with Karan Sangwan as he breached the code of conduct.”

A video of Sangwan, 30, was widely shared on social media sites a few days ago, which showed him asking students to elect “well-educated politicians” while discussing the recent bills tabled in the Lok Sabha to replace the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act.

On Thursday, Sangwan released a one-minute video on his Youtube channel “Legal Pathshala”, where he gives “judiciary coaching and law exam preparation”, saying he would delve into the details of his sacking in another video, which would be released on August 19. “For the past few days, a video has been viral due to which I am in controversy. Because of that controversy, several students of mine, who are preparing for judicial services examinations, are facing the consequences. Along with them, I have to face the consequences, too...” he said in the video, adding that he would answer all questions regarding the controversy in the second video.

“I received a notice from the platform on August 13. They said that it was because of a political comment on the video,” Sangwan told HT. He added that the video was not on the Unacademy channel but on his own personal YouTube channel, where he was wearing the Unacademy T-shirt. Sangwan had been associated with the platform since 2021.