World Teacher’s Day today
Shahin Akhter
Poor pay-scale and allowances and low social status mark the poor condition of the teachers in Bangladesh affecting the education sector, observed educationists and researchers.
They also said that the Bangladeshi teachers were lagging much behind their fellows even in the neighbouring countries in terms of these facilities and social status.
Both government and non-government teachers, from the primary to the tertiary levels, often can be found on roads demanding increase in their salaries and different allowances just to stay alive while the non-government teachers also have to wait for several years to get their retirement facilities.
Poor salaries force most teachers to go for additional work to augment their earnings for survival by compromising their efforts for teaching.
According to educationists and researchers, a country cannot expect quality education from the teachers who endure these sorts of hardships and problems.
They said that the teachers’ status has to be made higher by attracting capable, skilled and young ones in this profession with higher allocation for the education sector and improving the attitude towards the teachers.
Against this backdrop, the country is going to observe World Teacher’s Day today like elsewhere in the world with the theme ‘Recasting teaching as a collaborative profession’, highlighting the transformative potential of collaboration for teachers, schools, and education systems.
Currently in Bangladesh, there are around 12.76 lakh teachers from primary to tertiary levels, according to the Bangladesh Education Statistics, 2024 and the Annual Primary School Statistics, 2024 reports.
The white paper on the state of the Bangladesh economy, submitted to interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on December 1 last year, said that teachers, in primary and tertiary levels, continue to go underpaid compared with their fellows in other Asian countries, which squarely affects the quality of education.
Dhaka University Institute of Education and Research professor SM Hafizur Rahman said that due to poor salaries the teachers from the primary to tertiary levels had to undertake other work to pay for their families and could not give 100 per cent concentration in teaching.
‘By leaving the teachers hungry, you cannot expect quality teaching from them,’ he said, adding that at present the teachers had neither the money nor the respect in the society.
‘If I were 27 or 28 years old now, I would have considered leaving this profession,’ he added.
Quazi Faruque Ahmed, a member of the Education Policy 2010 formulation committee and also a member of the Asia-South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education, said that the situation of the teachers was evident in the Warrant of Precedence, 1986 (revised up to 2020) where the positions of senior professors were at the serials of 17, 19, and 22.
BRAC University professor emeritus Manzoor Ahmed said that the allocation in the education sector was also poor.
‘We are lagging behind the teachers in the neighbouring countries like Sri Lank, India, and Nepal in terms of facilities,’ Udayan Higher Secondary School former principal Jahura Begum told New Age.
She said that the amount of salaries and the status the teachers enjoyed in society was quite unrespectable.
The teachers in the country’s public universities enter as lecturers at the salary of Tk 22,000 as per the 9th grade.
At the secondary level government schools, the assistant teacher’s position at the entry level belongs to the 12th grade with the salary of Tk 11,300 while they could go up as far as the 6th grade with the salary of Tk 35,500 as the head teacher.
The non-government secondary level school teachers under the Monthly Payment Order scheme, however, do not get house rent, medical and treatment allowances as per the government ones.
In the government primary schools, the assistant teacher position at the entry level holds the 13th grade with the salary of Tk 11,000 and the head teacher position holds the 10th grade with the salary of Tk 16,000.
For several years, the government and non-government primary school teachers and the non-government secondary level school teachers under the MPO have been continuing protests both on streets in the capital and their educational institutions to demand raises in their salaries and other allowances.
During their protests, the police often attack them, disperse them by spraying water cannons, and throwing sound grenades — often injuring them.
The teachers from the non-government educational institutions also have to wait for even six to seven years to get their retirement benefits from the Non-Government Teachers and Employees’ Retirement Benefit Board and the Non-Government Teachers and Employees’ Welfare Trust.
Allegedly, some even pay bribes to get their benefits in a speedy manner.
Earlier a consultation committee on quality improvement for primary and non-formal education, formed by the interim government in September 2024, on February 10 recommended upgrading the assistant teacher position at the entry level to the 12th grade.
Professor Manzoor Ahmed, also the head of the committee, said that as the salaries for the teachers in Bangladesh were very poor the teaching profession could not attract skilled and young ones to the profession.
He resented that the recommendation for the enhancement of salaries and allowances for the primary teachers was not implemented till now.
Manzoor said that in future the status of the teachers should be made higher than the status of the civil servants to attract the young and skilled ones to this profession.
Dhaka University professor SM Hafizur Rahman said that after the July uprising in 2024 teachers faced the worst attacks on them, even physically.
The government should conduct a research to work out a pay-scale for all teachers consistent with the market situation and form an updated curriculum for the reformation of the education sector, he said.
After the overthrow of the Awami League-led government by the student-led mass uprising in 2024 many teachers, even the university-level ones,were being forced to leave their job even by students amid huge criticism.
Quazi Faruque, too, demanded a separate pay-scale for the teachers to attract young ones to this profession along with increasing their salaries.
Udayan Higher Secondary School former principal Jahura Begum said, ‘Earlier, our teachers came to our houses to know our whereabouts and now the police spray hot water on them when they demand higher salaries.’
She said that, first of all, children had to be taught morality in the family and from the primary level to bring an overall change in the mind-set of the people about the teaching profession.
The white paper on the economy cites that the average salary of a primary school teacher in Bangladesh is $170.02, which is $953.13 in Maldives, $284.64 in India, $250.44 in Sri Lanka, $206.07 in Pakistan, and $189.22 in Myanmar.
‘In terms of primary school teacher salaries, Bangladesh ranks 45th among the Asian countries and 7th in South Asia,’ it read.
Most recently, the government on July 28 made a decision to upgrade the salaries of the head teachers of all government primary schools so that they were equivalent to the 10th grade.
Before the decision, the trained head teachers used to get salaries as per the 11th grade and the head teachers without training used to get salaries as per the 12th grade.
According to the white paper, an entry-level teacher or lecturer at universities in Bangladesh earns between $220 and $482 per month which, in contrast, ranges from $770 to $2,420 in India, from $700 to $2,800 in Malaysia, and from $2,950 to $10,300 in Singapore.
– Article originally appeared on New Age.
