A teacher who accidentally played pornographic material to a class will be allowed to keep teaching.
The unnamed teacher has been censured by the NZ Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal for serious misconduct, but he has not been stripped of his registration.
In a recently released decision, the tribunal said the teacher had been showing a Year 12 class a powerpoint presentation when the media player skipped to the next file in the library, which happened to be pornographic material.
As soon as the teacher realised what the students were viewing, he disconnected the computer and the material only played for a few seconds.
The teacher resumed the lesson and did not mention what had happened.
The teacher says he accepted responsibility for what had happened and offered his resignation.
It was found that there were only a small number of pornographic clips on the computer, which was provided to the teacher by the school.
However, accessing and retaining such material on a school computer was unacceptable, which the teacher accepted.
In his 10 years at the school, the teacher had had an unblemished record and the incident had caused him great stress, the tribunal said.
The tribunal allowed him to keep his registration, but he has to inform any prospective employers of the incident and provide them with a copy of the tribunal’s decision.
