After nine days of work abstention over pay scale grievances, public university teachers have decided to put their protest on hold after receiving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s assurance of a solution soon.
The teachers of all 37 public universities will go back to work today, postponing the work abstention programme until February 3, said Prof ASM Maksud Kamal, secretary general of the Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers’ Association (FBUTA) after a meeting yesterday.
The prime minister on Monday assured the protesting teachers of reaching a solution regarding their demands for a separate pay scale and asked them to return to the classroom during a meeting with the teachers at Ganabhaban.
“The teachers are postponing the ongoing movement respecting the prime minister’s request and considering the students’ academic progress, but the movement will still go on until all our demands are met,” Prof Kamal said.
He further said the FBUTA will meet again on February 3 to assess the progress regarding their demands.
“If there is no satisfactory progress, we will decide on further steps to press home our demands.”
Meanwhile, Prof Maksud Kamal and FBUTA President Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed met with Education Secretary Sohrab Hossain on Sunday evening and submitted a proposal on behalf of the protesting teachers.
In the proposal, the teachers raised two demands: 5% of all public university professors should be made distinguished professors and their pay should be equal to that of senior secretaries, and 25% of all professors should be raised to Grade 1 status.
The FBUTA also urged the government to appoint a representative of the teachers into the pay scale disparity committee to ensure authenticity and probity.
The teachers, who began protests in May last year, have been demanding that a commission be formed to prepare a separate pay scale for public university teachers.
Their four-point demand also includes the immediate revision of the national pay scale, and keeping the pay of senior professors and senior secretaries at an equal level.
The teachers have been claiming that the new pay scale ensures more facilities for secretaries and government officials but less for teachers.
The salary of the teachers in the new pay scale remains two points below that of the secretaries, which is not only discriminatory but also humiliating, the teachers claim.
Last Tuesday, FBUTA leaders met Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid at the ministry, where the minister said he was optimistic about this issue being resolved soon.
