Public varsity teachers� movement
Academic activities to hamper
Apprehension of severe disruption in the academic activities of thousands of students looms large as teachers of the 37 public universities of the country have taken to the streets demanding separate pay package.
Already, teachers of several public universities have started work-abstention programme after the approval of the 8th Pay Scale by the government on Monday. The Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers Association (FBUTA), the platform of the teachers of all the public universities, yesterday gave an 24-hr ultimatum to materialize their demand and warned of tougher movement which, according to insiders, includes indefinite work-abstention.
In the latest development, the government and public university teachers have locked horns over a separate pay scale and finance minister AMA Muhiths comment that teachers have no knowledge. The teachers gave an ultimatum to Muhith, saying that he should apologise publicly within 24 hours. The minister has not changed his autocratic attitude as he was a minister during an autocratic government, they added.
Besides, teachers of Jahangirnagar University, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh Agriculture University, Jagannath University and Islamic University abstained from work yesterday, protesting against the finance ministers remarks. After the announcement of the newly approved eighth national pay scale, the government said separate committees have been formed to remove disparities in the pay scale of public university teachers.
The teachers expressed dissatisfaction and said the government had not accepted any of their four demands in the recently announced pay scale. Also, no specific guidelines have been suggested by the government to fulfil their demands.
Their four-point demands include formation of a commission to fix an independent pay scale for public university teachers, immediate revision of the eighth national pay scale, keeping senior professor and senior secretaries on the same structure and equal level of payment and benefits as enjoyed by the same graded government officials. The aggrieved teachers said they would never get Grade-1 as the government has revoked the selection grade and there are two more levels over Grade-1 in the eighth pay scale. They said the government in a sense has brought down the public university teachers by four levels.
The Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers Association (FBUTA) said in a press release yesterday that it expects that the government would begin the process to remove disparities in salary and status of the public university teachers, and would fulfil all their demands by holding discussions with them. They said if the government did not meet their just demands, they would go for a tougher movement, including work abstention. The teachers also reacted strongly against the comments of the finance minister that teachers have no knowledge. They said the remarks were undesirable and incoherent.
The president and secretary general of the FBUTA, Prof Farid Uddin and Prof ASM Maksud Kamal, said in the press release: The finance minister has tarnished the image of the government by making uncalled-for and ridiculous remarks about others in different times. He was the minister of an autocratic government in the past, and now he is showing his haughty manners as his autocratic attitude has not changed.
They said the finance ministers comments about teachers have created grievance among the 5.5 crore members of the education family.
We would urge the minister to withdraw his comments within 24 hours and apologise publicly. Otherwise, he has to bear the responsibility for any arising situation in the educational institutions, they said.
