Action looms on UP govt secondary school teachers who bagged jobs on fake degrees

Action is looming large on government-run secondary school teachers who have bagged job on the basis of fake 2004-05 session BEd degrees of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Agra.

Action is looming large on government-run secondary school teachers who have bagged job on the basis of fake 2004-05 session BEd degrees of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Agra.

After action against similar teachers of government-run primary schools by the state Basic Education department, Additional director (secondary education) Mahendra Dev has now ordered all district inspectors of schools (DIOSs) to provide information regarding teachers at government secondary schools in their respective districts who have been appointed on the basis of BEd degrees of 2004-05 session of Agra University.

Following the orders, the state education directorate has set up a two-member screening committee comprising two of its deputy directors (education) including Ramchet and Shiv Sevak Singh to look into all such cases, inform education department officials.

Though officials concerned are tight-lipped about this ongoing inquiry, others in the department concede that already over 150 such teachers have been identified in 60 different districts of the state and whose documents would now be scrutinised afresh. “As soon as details arrive from the remaining 15 districts, the scrutiny would begin,” they claim.

Officials share that they plan to complete the probe and make the information available to the state government for action by June end itself.

Additional director (secondary education) Mahendra Singh Dev confirmed the development and said that the two member screening committee set up to look into the issue is already conducting an inquiry. Action would be taken based on the documents of these teachers being compared with details of fake and tampered degrees of Agra university made available by the special task force (STF) of UP Police, he added.

Already, over 1000 government primary school teachers of the state have been terminated during the past two years on the grounds of bagging jobs on the basis of fake and tampered degrees. These teachers were part of a list of 4705 individuals identified by the special investigation team (SIT) set up by the office of the UP DGP to find individuals who had secured fake degrees and mark-sheets from Agra University and bagged government jobs. Five varsity employees were also arrested in this connection. On December 13, 2018, the SIT had handed over this list to UP Education department in a CD.

The SIT was formed after a complaint was lodged with the state education department about employees with fake or tampered degrees. The SIT in its report had mentioned that as many as 3,652 employees in the state education department had fake degrees and 1,052 employees had tampered degrees. The panel had submitted its report to the education department after which officials in the department were ordered to take action against the employees with fake degrees.