Professional Deviance of Teachers

In one line

The teacher's deviance is distinctive because the person harmed is a child or a young adult who cannot judge the service, cannot change the supplier and will not know for years what he did not learn.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: professional deviance of teachers covers examination malpractice, the private tuition economy, plagiarism and research fraud, the abuse of the position over students, and institutional deviance in recognition, appointment and the diversion of funds; the profession has no unified disciplinary body comparable to the Bar Councils or the medical regulator, which is the principal structural feature of the topic.

The forms

Examination malpractice. Leakage and sale of question papers, impersonation, organised mass copying, and the sale of marks. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 now names the selling of public examination question papers expressly in section 112, as one of the acts constituting petty organised crime when committed by a member of a group or gang, which is a recognition that the conduct is organised rather than individual.

The private tuition economy. Teaching inadequately in the classroom in order to sell the same teaching privately, and coercing students of one's own school into paying for it. This is the exploitation of the asymmetry described in the framework chapter, and it is the commonest form by volume in India.

Plagiarism and research fraud. Fabricated data, plagiarised text, ghost authorship, and publication in journals that do not review. It matters beyond the university where the research informs medicine, engineering or policy.

Abuse of position. Sexual harassment, discrimination in marking, and the use of a student's labour for the teacher's private work. The asymmetry here is greater than in any other profession because the student's future is in the teacher's hands.

Recognition and appointment deviance. Appointment by payment, appointment of persons who do not teach, and inflated faculty lists produced for an inspection, which connects directly to the chapter on deviance in the educational field.

And absence. The most consequential form in Indian school education, and one that requires no dishonesty of any other kind.

Why the profession is different

There is no single regulator. Doctors have a medical commission, advocates have Bar Councils, chartered accountants have their institute. Teachers are regulated by whoever employs them, by the school board, by the university, and in higher education by a national body concerned mainly with recognition and funding rather than with individual conduct.

Discipline is employment discipline. A teacher who is found to have taken money for marks is dealt with by his employer under service rules, and the outcome depends on whether the employer wants the finding made.

The complainant is a student. He is dependent on the institution for his degree, he will need its certificate and its goodwill, and complaining is a decision with career consequences. That is a stronger deterrent to complaint than exists in any other profession in this topic.