CHENNAI: The Elementary Education Department suspended a Bachelor of Training (BT) assistant English teacher of a panchayat union middle school in Harur educational district, Dharmapuri for engaging a proxy teacher to handle classes.

The incident had come to light after the school management committee (SMC) members held a meeting in August when it was found that the teacher K Balaji had been irregular. An inquiry was taken up, which found that he had engaged a proxy teacher to handle classes, and has hence been placed under suspension.

Meanwhile, in September, the department also suspended a Block Educational Officer (BEO) and a school headmistress in Villivakkam educational block for reportedly fabricating students’ enrollment data and for wrongly fixing the student-teachers ratio of the Pammadhukulam school.

There are only 16 teachers for the 266 students studying at the Villurpuram school at present. However, the two education staff fabricated the data and exaggerated the number of enrolled students as 566 in the Educational Management Information System (EMIS) portal. Following this, the department suspended Villupuram Block Educational Officer (BEO) for failure to inspect data fraud in student enrollment and student-teachers ratio. With multiple such cases being reported, the department had called for a thorough inspection.