Sai Krishnan Santhosh Kumar, 36, has been banned indefinitely from teaching in England after a tribunal found he improperly edited or created coursework for 23 students at Meadow Park School in Whitley, Coventry, in late 2024. The misconduct involved altering presentations for a BTEC IT module without the students' knowledge.
Kumar was discovered when a colleague noticed his initials within a student's PowerPoint presentation, indicating he was making edits during the exam. The colleague's suspicions were raised because the presentation looked unfamiliar, and upon closer inspection, it was revealed that Kumar had been accessing and modifying files in real time. Version history logs of the students' files also showed edits made by a user named Sai Krishnan.
Following the discovery, Kumar was suspended on January 13 and resigned on January 20, 2025, after an internal investigation confirmed he had altered coursework for nearly an entire class. The school subsequently disregarded the affected work, relying on the two unaffected components to calculate the students' grades.
Kumar admitted to editing or adding material to presentations for 19 students in one module and nine in another. While he denied his conduct was dishonest, the tribunal found him guilty on all counts. The panel noted that Kumar's genuine belief was that he was providing permissible support to students, even admitting to completing the entirety of one student's presentation. However, the tribunal determined his motivation was irrelevant to the finding of dishonesty.
During the proceedings, it was established that assessment records, including declarations signed by both student and teacher, were required to confirm the work was the student's own. The Teaching Regulation Agency panel stated that Kumar's actions, if undetected, would have misled the exam board, Pearson, into believing the students were solely responsible for the coursework. The panel described the conduct as "dishonest" and "of a serious nature" that fell significantly short of professional standards.
Kumar, who has 13 years of teaching experience and now works in customer service at an AI technology company, has the right to appeal the decision and can apply for the ban to be lifted in July 2029.