Uttar Pradesh teacher suspended for playing Candy Crush while working
What's the story
An assistant teacher at a government school in Sambhal district, Uttar Pradesh, has been suspended for playing Candy Crush on his phone during duty hours.
The dereliction of duty was caught by District Magistrate Rajendra Pansiyam, when he conducted an unannounced inspection at the school and found numerous errors in students' work.
Pansiya discovered that the teacher, Priyam Goyal, had been spending a significant portion of his workday on his phone.
Investigation
Extensive phone usage revealed during school inspection
Pansiya found 95 mistakes, including nine on the first page alone while checking six pages from six students' copies
This led him to investigate Goyal's phone usage during school hours.
The Digital Wellbeing feature on Goyal's phone showed that he spent nearly two hours each day playing Candy Crush during the five-and-a-half-hour school day.
Additionally, Goyal also spent 26 minutes talking on the phone and almost 30 minutes using social media apps.
Response
District Magistrate calls for quality education, teacher accountability
"Teachers should focus on checking the homework of students, and ensure that they get quality education... Also, using mobile phones is not a problem, but using them for personal reasons during school hours is not right," Pansiya told India Today.
Following his discovery of Goyal's misuse of phone during school hours, Pansiya reported the situation to the state education department.
The department acknowledged the issue and subsequently suspended Goyal from his teaching duties.