A group of Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) have raised concerns over a Dhivehi teacher who was transferred to Hiriya school, after he was found innocent in a court case concerning possession of pornographic images.
Hiriya school is an all-female secondary grade school which officially opened last year.
Director General of the Education Ministry Mohamed Saeed said that the PTAs of many schools in Male’ met with the Ministry yesterday to “express concern”.
”He worked in Dharumavantha School last year as a Dhivehi teacher and was transferred to Hiriya School along with some other teachers,” said Saeed. ”Ever since he was transferred we have received complaints from parents.”
”The teacher was suspended during the case and the court ruled that we should restore his job,” Saeed said.
He emphasised that the teacher had been found innocent, but parents remained concerned about the allegations.
”They said they did not like a man who had allegations of this kind against him to face the students everyday,” he said. ”Because of this issue he has not started working at the school but he remains officially registered as a teacher at Hiriya.”
He said that the PTAs were trying to prevent the teacher from working at the school.
Ahmed Riyaz, President of Hiriya School PTA, told Minivan News that parents were concerned that pornographic pictures of the teacher had been exposed “and everybody knows that”, despite the court ruling he was innocent.
”Courts do not always punish criminals,” claimed Riyaz. ”The court ruled that the pictures were not produced or leaked by [the teacher] – we do not know from the ruling whether it was him in the picture,” he added.
Riyaz said that as the school contained “a mixture of disciplined and undisciplined students”, there might be students “who would tease him by [spreading] the pictures and consequently get punished for it, which might disrupt the education of the student.”
Riyaz claimed Permanent Secretary for the Education Ministry Amand Ali “is the only one who is pressuring the school to have this teacher in Hiriya. She had sent letters to the Hiriya school principal demanding the teacher be allowed to work.”
He further alleged the Dhivehi teacher was transferred because he was “embarrassed to face students at Dharumavantha School,” and “does not have the qualifications to be a secondary grade Dhivehi teacher.”
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