A government school teacher in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh has been suspended for misconduct during duty hours. The teacher, Priyam Goyal, was found playing Candy Crush, using social media, and talking on his mobile phone during school hours. This incident came to light during a surprise inspection conducted by District Magistrate Rajendra Pansiya.
During the inspection, Pansiya discovered numerous errors in students’ notebooks. While checking the notebooks of six students, he found 95 mistakes, nine of which were on the first page itself. Further investigation using the device’s Digital Well-being feature revealed that assistant teacher Priyam Goyal had spent nearly two hours playing Candy Crush and 56 minutes on phone calls and social media apps during school hours. The Digital Well-being feature tracks hours dedicated to applications.
The District Magistrate expressed disappointment, emphasizing the importance of teachers focusing on students’ education rather than personal activities during school hours. “Teachers should focus on checking the classwork and 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,” the District Magistrate told reporters.
Following the incident, the state education department took cognizance of the matter and suspended Goyal. A user’s post on social media platform X, expressing concern about the Uttar Pradesh education department’s order, attracted several comments. Some users said the UP government school should have terminated him from the job, while others raised questions about whether a District Magistrate was authorized to check a government employee’s mobile phone.
