Tauranga teacher did students' work for them after cancer sick leave, education council finds

Carel Human was a teacher at Tauranga Boys' College for a decade. Photo / File

A Tauranga high school teacher who did students' work for them, gave credits for work that had not been done and gave achieved marks to work not worthy of it, has been censured.

Carel Human, a technology teacher at Tauranga Boys College was censured for serious misconduct and ordered to pay tribunal costs in an Education Council finding released last week .

Human had taught at the college for a decade and taken sick leave in Term 2 of 2016 while he received treatment for kidney cancer. While away his Year 11 engineering class was taught by three relief teachers.

When Human returned in Term 3 he found the class was behind.

On October 11, 2016, the second day of Term 4, Human spent five minutes updating the school's grading database to record the grades of 19 students who had sat a unit standard. All but one was awarded an achieved grade.

Two days later a student reported receiving credits for work he had not completed.

A review of the work of five students in Human's class revealed that, despite being awarded an achieved grade for the Unit Standard by Human, all five students had not completed the minimum work required to be awarded that grade.

The five pieces of work were remarked by another teacher who said the answers marked were, "so far off the mark I couldn't believe it". None of the students met the achieved standard after being remarked.

Two weeks later during an internal moderation it was discovered some of the answers contained in various students' work from February and March had been completed by Human.

According to the finding, five students interviewed during Education Council investigations confirmed the teacher had written answers on their work.

"I didn't really know what to write so he did it for me," a student said.

All up, Human recorded between 3 and 21 per cent of the answers in the five students' workbooks and wrote on the work of 28 per cent of students in the class.

When confronted, Human initially said perhaps the student didn't have a pen.

In a written response to the concerns, provided after a meeting with the school principal on November 8, Human said the class was behind in their work when he returned after sick leave.

He told the students "if they try their best, I will be generous in marking their folders". Human said whenever he wrote an answer for a student, that student was in front of him and had provided the information.

In response to questions from the Education Council in March 2018 Human admitted writing answers in students' workbooks to "simplify explaining".

During the course of the Education Council investigation, Human emphasised the students had made little or no progress during the time he was away from school receiving treatment.

During the Education Council hearing, the Complaints Assessment Committee said what Human had done "adversely affected the educational wellbeing of students, reflects adversely on his fitness to be a teacher and risks bringing the teaching profession into disrepute".

Human's counsel said while he acknowledged his actions amounted to serious misconduct, it had occurred during a period of stress and illness.

According to counsel, his motivation was helping students he felt had been disadvantaged by his own illness.

Human resigned from the school in January 2017 and has been re-employed at another school, the principal of which is aware of the issues.

The finding states Human did not want to pursue permanent name suppression and acknowledged "the embarrassment that may be caused to him by the publication of the decision is part of accepting responsibility for his actions".

Human has been censured and ordered to pay $458, 40 per cent of tribunal costs.

His teaching licence is still valid and Human will undergo mentoring, do a course on assessment, moderation, professional boundaries and curriculum planning and delivery and has to show a copy of the decision employers for the next two years.

Human is also unable to apply for or accept any principalship, head of Department position or any position with management responsibility for three years.