Teachers seek PM’s intervention over MPO inclusion

Agitating teachers and employees of non-government schools, colleges and technical institutions on Sunday urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to announce their inclusion in the government’s Monthly Pay Order for salaries and other benefits as they began their hunger strike on the day.
Several hundred teachers and employees under the banner of Non-MPO Educational Institutions’ Teachers and Employees Federation have been agitating round the clock under open sky in shivering cold since December 26.
They made the appeal to the prime minister from their hunger strike that began on Sunday morning after five days of sit-in on the street in front of National Press Club in Dhaka failed to get any government response. 
They said they would not end their fast-unto-death unless their demand for MPO enlistment was not met.
There are about 80,000 teachers and employees of over 5,000 non-government educational institutions outside the purview of MPO.
Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Saturday at a press conference in his secretariat office urged the teachers and employees to end their agitations, saying that he had already informed the finance ministry in this regard. ‘Once the finance ministry allocates the money, we will sanction it,’ he said.
The teachers rejected Nahid’s call.
The federation president Golam Mahmudunnabi said that the education minister had made such remarks several times in the past few years. ‘We expect prime minister’s intervention,’ he said, ‘We hope she will announce our MPO inclusion before hearing news of our death in hunger strike.’
The federation secretary Binoy Bhushan Roy said, ‘There are funds for Padma Bridge but not for the unfortunate teachers.’
‘We were here on the street for five days under open sky, but the government did not bother to care... We will not go home without prime minister’s announcement,’ he said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net