Teacher tricked college for years

By Theresa Garner and Ken Lewis

Schools may be unwittingly hiring fake teachers, but the teachers' professional body says it is not worth the time and effort to chase them down.

Bream Bay College, 25km south of Whangarei, has sacked a sixth-form chemistry teacher, Magnesh Reddy, after finding out four years after giving him a job that his qualifications were bogus.

The Minister of Education, Nick Smith, has launched an inquiry into how an unqualified and incompetent teacher had gone undetected for possibly 10 years.

Mr Reddy, a Fijian-Indian immigrant, began teaching in the 1980s and got the job at Bream Bay in 1995.

The principal, John Fitzgerald, said the Qualifications Authority raised concerns about Mr Reddy two years ago over his marking of some exam papers.

He was given training by another chemistry teacher but the authority again raised concerns about his marking this year, which led to an investigation of his qualifications by the school.

Universities in Delhi, Suva and Auckland have all denied they awarded masters and bachelor degrees in science and education to the teacher.

Mr Reddy was asked to sit a bursary chemistry exam during the investigation. It is believed he scored a very low mark.

Mr Fitzgerald said the well-liked teacher had taught hundreds of form three to seven pupils, and had never been the subject of a complaint.

Chemistry school certificate and bursary exam results were slightly down compared with other science subjects, but this could have been because of low numbers of senior students taking the subject.

"He was a very positive, enthusiastic teacher who created a good learning environment for his students."

Mr Fitzgerald said the school could not be entirely blamed for Mr Reddy's employment.

"He was already being paid at the top of the teacher pay scale and that could only have been possible if either NZQA or the Department of Education were satisfied by his qualifications."

A letter will be sent to parents explaining the circumstances of the dismissal and students facing exams at the end of the year will be offered extra tutoring.

Ministry of Education officials are searching for Mr Reddy's files after Dr Smith demanded to know his employment history and details of any professional assessment.

His qualifications were approved by the former Department of Education before 1989.

After the Teacher Registration Board was set up that year, teachers already employed were given automatic registration.

The board chairman, Lyall Perris, said the board could see how a teacher with false credentials slipped through the system but he saw no need for systems changes.

"Introducing major bureaucratic interference to screen rare instances is a highly ineffective way of going about things."

The Qualifications Authority said it was up to the school and the registration board to satisfy themselves that qualifications were authentic.