Fake degrees: Five teachers suspended

P R Pawar,education inspector for western zone,Mumbai,has cancelled the approval of the teachers and suspended them. He said these teachers were given jobs on the basis of bogus degrees and hence the schools will have to repay their entire salary to the government. “We had sent the certificates and degrees of the teachers to the varsity in Varanasi and they confirmed tha they were bogus. We are treating this matter very seriously and have cancelled the approval of the teachers. We have also issued a show-cause notice to the managements of both schools,” said Pawar,adding that they have been told to file FIRs against the teachers. He said the Education Department would soon issue a circular to get the degrees and certificates of teachers coming from other states verified at the earliest.

Other teachers in these schools first informed TDF about the issue last February. However,since the school management defended the teachers,a written complaint was filed to the then education inspector K R Borse in March 8,2010. But no action was taken until Borse’s retirement in June 2010. “Before Borse retired he handed us all the relevant documents including the photocopy of the degrees and certificates and on the basis of that we managed to get the verification done. We suspect some officers in the Education Department are also involved in this case as they tried to cover up the matter. They never asked for verification until we gave a legal notice to the Director of Education,Pune,” said TDF president Janardan Jangle. “These are just five cases that have come to light. I am sure there must be hundreds of such teachers with bogus degrees working in the city,” said Jangle.

When approached Jawahar Vidyalaya headmaster Vedprakash Singh said: “We are investigating the matter and will communicate it to the Education Department. We do not wish to make any comments till then.” The headmistress of Swami Vivekananda High School refused to comment.