'Personal Opinion And Views Can Wrongly Influence Learners': Unacademy Sacks Teacher Over Viral 'Elect Educated Candidates' Video

Edtech firm Unacademy has terminated the employment of a teacher named Karan Sangwan after a video of him urging students to vote for "educated candidates" went viral on social media.

Roman Saini, co-founder of Unacademy, stated that sharing personal opinions and views is not appropriate in a classroom setting.

As a result, the online education platform had no choice but to part ways with Karan Sangwan due to his violation of the company's strict Code of Conduct.

Taking to X, previously Twitter, Saini wrote, "We are an education platform that is deeply committed to imparting quality education. To do this we have in place a strict Code of Conduct for all our educators with the intention of ensuring that our learners have access to unbiased knowledge,".

Saini further explained that learners are the primary focus at Unacademy, and personal opinions and views should not be shared in the classroom as they can potentially mislead students.

"Our learners are at the centre of everything we do. The classroom is not a place to share personal opinions and views as they can wrongly influence them," he said.

"In the current situation, we were forced to part ways with Karan Sangwan as he was in breach of the Code of Conduct," Saini said.

The controversial video that went viral on X showed Sangwan urging students not to vote for those who only focus on changing names, and to elect well-educated politicians.

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who has in the past took jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his educational qualifications, questioned the decision by the edtech firm.

Kejriwal questioned whether it was a crime to encourage people to vote for educated politicians. “Is it a crime to appeal to vote for educated people? If someone is illiterate, personally I respect him. But people’s representatives cannot be illiterate. This is the era of science and technology. Illiterate public representatives can never build the modern India of 21st century,” Kejriwal wrote on X, reports Indian Express.