The administrative secretaries committee has approved a proposal from the mass education ministry to create 22,925 new posts for primary teachers at newly-registered primary schools.
The committee approved the proposal at a meeting at cabinet division yesterday presided over by Senior Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration Abdus Sobhan Sikder.
State Minister for the Ministry of Primary and Mass education Md. Motahar Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that due to teacher shortages, primary schools across the country were not operating smoothly.
“It was a part of the election pledges of the government to appoint more schoolteachers through creating posts, but the process had been delayed in the last two years due to the rigid position of the finance division,” he said, adding that following the approval of the secretaries committee, new teachers will be able to join work from next July.
As per the proposal, the annual total cost to the government to pay these teachers their salaries, under the Monthly Payment Order arrangement, will be Tk4bn.
In January 2013, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at a teachers’ grand rally in the capital, announced that her government would nationalise all non-government registered primary schools to fulfil one of the election pledges of the grand alliance government.
The government, as per the prime minister’s announcement, took an initiative to nationalise around 26,200 non-government primary schools. Accordingly, 22,925 primary schools were nationalised in the first phase.
Another 2,252 schools will be nationalised in the second phase.
Besides, the state minister said, the nationalisation of 960 unregistered primary schools would begin after the data for listed schools, teachers and employees are collected and scrutinised in the next phase, which will begin on January 1, 2014.