Vijayawada civic chief calls teacher 'rascal', faces backlash

Hyderabad, Dec 3: Vijayawada Municipal Commissioner G Veerapandian shouted at a civic school teacher for poor student performance and called him 'rascal' and 'useless fellow', but immediately faced a backlash from municipal school teachers. Veerapandian is said to have lost his temper while inspecting the performance of teachers and students at AKTP High School in Satyanarayanapuram in Vijayawada. During his inspection to review the pass percentage among class 10 students, it came to his notice that 30 SSC students failed in the semester examinations. Expressing her anger at this, the civic chief is said to have shouted at one of the teachers saying he spoiled the future of the students. Instead of stopping there, Veerapandian is believed to have commented that the teacher may not have studied during his college days. Otherwise, he would have taught something to the students. Then questioning the nativity of the teacher, the civic chief asked the teacher whether he was a native Telugu speaking person or from North India. Even during a meeting with the school teachers in the head master's room, the civic chief blamed the teachers for the poor performance of the students and told them to resign from the service if they cannot monitor the students. The civic chief then directed the district education officer to suspend the school principal K Neelima Devi and the teacher KE Paul. Angered by this tirade on them, municipal school teachers of Vijayawada slammed the commissioner for his comments and staged a sit-in protest at Circle-2 office. They demanded the state government to take strong action against Veerapandian and sought an unconditional apology from him. They are likely to continue their protest today also.