An English teacher at Crieff High School has been struck off after a disciplinary panel decided he had faked pupils’ essays.
Colin Cairns (51) was told his actions had been ”reprehensible” and no lesser punishment would be acceptable.
He was found guilty of four charges by the General Teaching Council for Scotland and will now be unable to work in classrooms anywhere in the country.
It will be 12 months before he is allowed to seek to have his name returned to the official register of teachers.
Mr Cairns had denied in May 2010 placing an essay on the poem The Pied Piper in the folio of Standard Grade work by one of his pupils without her knowledge and also then handing it to his department head for submission to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
He had also denied acting in a similar manner in relation to another pupil’s folio with an essay on the poem The Ruined City.
Both girls gave evidence during the hearing and the GTCS disciplinary sub-committee said it had found them ”credible and reliable” witnesses.
One of the girls said she approached Mr Cairns after realising she did not have a poetry piece for her folio and he said he would ”deal with it”. The next time she saw the folio it included an essay on The Pied Piper which she had not studied and was not in her handwriting.
The other girl told the hearing: ”I didn’t have a poetry piece when I handed it (the folio) in and he said he would sort it out for me. I didn’t have an essay and then when I got my folio there was an essay in it that I haven’t done.”
Mr Cairns told the sub-committee that other people had access to his cupboard. He also claimed that witnesses and their statements had been tampered with and there was ”a third party” involved.
In its written judgment, the sub-committee said there had been a ”considerably strained and tense atmosphere in the English department” following Mr Cairns’ arrival. It accepted that the investigations carried out within the school were ”not entirely satisfactory”.
Mr Cairns had suggested he was under severe stress and pressure at the time due to other activities within the school. The sub-committee did not accept that such activities would have taken priority over the completion of folios at that time.
In the case of the essay on The Ruined City, there was evidence that this had been extracted from the teacher’s computer and it was not credible that anyone else could have obtained it.
The judgment said Mr Cairns had an obligation to act in a responsible and honest way in regard to the interests of the pupils in his care.
Options including issuing a reprimand or placing conditions on Mr Cairns’ registration were considered, but the sub-committee decided striking him off the register was the right course of action.
He had failed to uphold standards of professional conduct and ”failed to act with integrity whilst making declarations or conducting tasks in connection with pupils’ examinations and in the particular circumstances of this case failed to act as a role model to those in his charge,” the sub-committee said.