Jajpur: A number of fradulent cases were detected while examining the certificates of Odisha Eligibility Teachers’ Test (OTET) in Jajpur, a report said.
According to the report, in the past, many teachers have been caught furnishing forged BEd and CET certificates in the district. The latest fraud came to the fore through a response to an RTI query.
Abhimanyu Barik, an RTI activist of Bhadrak, had drawn the attention of the Jajpur district education officer (DEO) March 19, 2021, towards a teacher serving on the basis of a forged OTET certificate.
He had also apprised the Secretary of the School and Mass Education department of this matter, June 9, 2021.
In response, the district Education department started an investigation into the allegation, which led to the detection of two more cases in Jajpur.
During the investigation, it was learnt that three teachers got increments on the basis of their forged OTET certificates. The district Education office has asked the Barchana block education officer to issue show cause notices to the teachers concerned.
Besides, the Joint Director and nodal officer of the Directorate of Elementary Education, Odisha, (via their letter No. 12225, dated July 29, 2021) directed the district education officer and the Barchana BEO to verify the documents, certificates and marksheets of the concerned teachers.
The officials were also directed to lodge FIRs against the teachers at the local police stations and dismiss them from service under OSC (CCA) Rule-1962 if their documents are found to be forged.
It may be noted here that the Directorate of Elementary Education and the School and Mass Education department in 2015 and 2016 had asked the DEO to look into the cases wherein teachers have been serving on the basis of forged certificates in the district.
The DEE had again ordered for verification of the certificates of teachers in 2019 (twice) and in 2020 (twice). But it is alleged that no step was taken at the district level in this direction.
As the officials orders are not carried out properly, detecting fake teachers has been an impossible task. As per the RTI response, OTET results were out November 21, 2019. In all 46,822 teachers were successful.
The RTI response stated that candidates with roll numbers like 181002255; 1813010067 and 1811306011 could not succeed. The RTI activists had alleged that an assistant teacher of Barchana block was involved in the fraud.
The district Education department had sought documentary data of 10 teachers from the Board of Secondary Education. As per the data provided by the BSE, three teachers had furnished fake OTET certificates.
PNN