Candidates who have been recommended for the position of assistant teacher in government primary schools will continue their protests at Shahbagh from Thursday morning, marking the eighth day of their movement.
The protest will begin at 9am.
The announcement was made on Wednesday afternoon during the ongoing protest in front of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education.
One of the protest organizers, Mobibullah, said: “The Justice for Teacher, Long March to Dhaka movement will commence at 9am on Thursday.
This program aims to mobilize 6,531 participants.”
Candidates recommended for the assistant teacher position in the third phase from Dhaka and Chittagong divisions have declared that if their recruitment is not guaranteed by midday on Wednesday, they will escalate their protest alongside the ongoing sit-in.
On Tuesday evening, candidates gathered in front of the National Museum at Shahbagh in the capital. Two representatives, Janatul Naim Sweety and Fahmida Rozi, declared an ultimatum demanding recruitment assurance by 12pm on Wednesday.
They also announced that their sit-in would continue until that time.
Earlier on Tuesday, the candidates met with the primary and mass education adviser and the secretary of Primary and Mass Education at the secretariat.
Representatives of the recruitment candidates, including Janatul Naim Sweety, Talukder Piyas, Nawrin Akter, Shamima Akter, Mala Bos, and Shahriar Azim, attended the meeting.
Janatul Naim Sweety told the media on Wednesday evening that they would not call off the protest without a guarantee of recruitment.
"The recruitment assurance must be given by 12pm on Thursday. The legal issues must be resolved, and arrangements for recruitment need to be made," she said.
"We have spoken with the adviser and the secretary of Primary and Mass Education, and they have given us their assurances," she added.
Janatul Naim Sweety said: "The court’s ruling has cancelled our recruitment. If this unjust ruling is not annulled, and if the state does not act to cancel it, the movement will intensify. We want our rights back. We will not leave the streets until our recruitment is confirmed."
She added: “We were summoned to the secretariat. We spoke with the secretary of Primary and Mass Education. He assured us, saying that they have not remained idle regarding our issue. They have filed an appeal to overturn the court’s ruling.”
She also said: “We also spoke with the adviser, who assured us that not a single one of the 6,531 candidates would be excluded. However, we cannot rely on mere assurances. Similar promises were made in the past but were never fulfilled. That is why we want to return only with a concrete guarantee of our recruitment.”
She also requested the chief adviser to intervene from a humanitarian perspective to restore the candidates' rights.
The protestors, who have been staging a continuous sit-in since Thursday, have maintained their movement despite police repression on Monday.
On Thursday, the High Court cancelled the recruitment of 6,531 candidates from Dhaka and Chittagong divisions who had passed the final selection for the assistant teacher position in government primary schools in the third phase.
The court instructed that recruitment be carried out based on merit. The bench of Justice Fatema Najib and Justice Sikder Mahmudur Razi passed the ruling.
Earlier, on November 19 last year, the High Court had suspended the recruitment process for these 6,531 candidates for six months.
