Public university teachers formally withdrew their shutdown programme yesterday. The agitation had remained suspended ever since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assured them to look into their demand for promotion to Grade-1 in January. The teachers said they have now got the legal basis given by the government to fulfil their demands of getting Grade-1 posts from Grade-3, as the facilities were dropped due to the scrapping of selection grade and time scale in the Eighth National Pay Scale.
They also said that they had launched the movement around 10 months ago for “status” and not for salary. Now, they feel that they have got the "status" after getting facilities of Grade-1 posts from Grade-3, which was given by the government on March 24 after a Cabinet sub-committee meeting on salary discriminations.
They, however, said that the government has fulfilled their partial demands and that they are yet to get the Super Grade-2 status. They urged the government to fulfil it by creating distinguished posts for them. The observation came at a press conference organised by the Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers’ Association (FBUTA) at Dhaka University Club. Federation president Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed and secretary general Prof. ASM Maksud Kamal said this after holding a general meeting with the representatives of 37 public universities here.
“There were various misunderstanding about our demands among different quarters of the government. They have realised their mistakes at last. Our movement was not for salary but for status,” Ahmed said.
“Now there is no obstacle in getting Grade-1 from Grade-3. All hindrances of the past have been removed following the PM’s intervention. We thank her and others in her government for fulfilling our demands," said Kamal.
“We are withdrawing our movement  today after fulfilling our main demands. But we will wage movement whenever it will be necessary for the sake of the development of higher education,” he added.