Teachers levy allegations of discrimination after circular asks members of only one community to submit their qualification documents for verification
Teachers levy allegations of discrimination after circular asks members of only one community to submit their qualification documents for verification
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TEACHERS in the city from the North Indian community are finding themselves at the receiving end of a double whammy from the state education department.
Following a spate of cases of teachers submitting false documents of their educational qualifications, a circular issued by an education inspector has asked only the North Indian teachers in all government-aided schools to submit attested copies of their documents for verification.
Apart from demanding documents, North Indian teachers have been asked to pay Rs 500 as verification fee
And, as if the ignominy of being singled out wasn't enough, they have also been asked to pay Rs 500 as a fee for the verification process.
Agitated teachers claim the circular is discriminatory.
"Why are they verifying the educational qualifications of only North Indian teachers? Why are Maharashtrian teachers not being asked to submit their documents as well? Couldn't they have faked their documents? It seems we are being targeted.
The education department is even asking for documents of those North Indian teachers who have studied in Maharashtra.
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And, if they want to verify the documents, why are they charging us for it?" asked a teacher, who did not want to be named.
"I have been working for 15 years and suddenly they wake up and want to check my educational qualifications. They should have done that during the appointment process," he added.
"How can they cast aspersions on all teachers just because four or five such cases have come to light? When I pursued the matter with education department officials, however, they said that the circular may have been issued by a lower level official," said Kapil Patil, MLC and president of Lok Bharati.
The Other Side
Pandurang Pawar, the education inspector who sent out the circular, said, "Five cases of teachers submitting fake and forged certificates have come to light recently and, thus, the circular was sent. It is just that the priority right now is to check the certificates of North Indian teachers, but we will later ask all teachers, including Maharashtrian ones, to submit their certificates for verification."
"The cases of forgery which came to light were of those teachers who had obtained degrees from outside Maharashtra. Therefore, we have initiated the process just to be on the safe side. This is not the first time such an exercise will be undertaken ufffdteachers who had education diplomas (D.Ed) had to undergo a similar verification in 1992-93."
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