Govt to promote 65,000 pry teachers to asst head teachers

The government has decided to create new post of assistant head teachers in all 65,620 government primary schools and promote the assistant teachers to the new position in the wake of ongoing agitation for pay scale up-gradation. 

Primary and mass education secretary Md Akram-Al-Hossain told New Age on Thursday that the public administration ministry had already approved a proposal for creating the new posts.

‘The proposal would be sent to finance ministry for approval and then it would be placed at the secretary committee meeting for the final approval, Akram said.

‘The new posts would be filled up promoting the assistant teachers based on seniority,’ he said.

Appointing assistant head teachers will not only reduce pressure on the head teachers but also will meet the demand of the assistant teachers for their salary

scale up-gradation, Akram said.

The newly created assistant head teachers will enjoy grade 12 of the National Pay Scale and the trained assistant teachers at present enjoy basic pay under grade 14 and untrained ones enjoy it under grade 15, he said.

‘Promoting assistant teachers will not hamper the classroom activities as 18,147 new assistant teachers have already been appointed in December and the government has plans to appoint more primary school teachers,’ Akram said.

Primary school teachers said that promoting them to the newly created position under grade 12 was not the solution. The teachers are on agitation demanding upgrading their salary scale since the prime minister announced Class II status for the head teachers of the primary schools in 2014.

‘Many senior assistant teachers like me, who got three time scales, already enjoy salary under grade 11 of the National Pay Scale. We have been demanding the same salary for all assistant teachers and grade 10 for the head teachers,’ Bangladesh Prathamik Shikkhak Oikya Parishad convener Md Anisur Rahman said.

‘We will give formal reaction to the government’s latest move after getting formal proposal,’ he said.

Anisur also said that the primary teachers were not announcing any programme as the government was taking departmental actions against teachers for participating in agitations.

An estimated 3.20 lakh assistant teachers at the government primary schools, serving under grade 14 and 15 depending on getting the government training, get basic salary of Tk 10,200 and Tk 9,700 respectively.

The assistant teachers under the proposed grade 12 as assistant head teachers would get basic salary of Tk 11,300.

The government school head teachers, who get basic salary of Tk 12,500 in grade 11, filed a case against the government in 2018 for upgrading their status to grade 10 of the National Pay Scale as enjoyed by other Class II government officials.

Basic salary under grade 10 is Tk 16,000.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net