Teacher crunch hits govt colleges
HARUN UR RASHID
The crisis of teachers has become acute in government colleges in the absence of timely promotions, creation of new posts or direct recruitment through the special Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS). Around 20 per cent of the posts ranging from those of principals to lecturers are lying vacant for a long time.
This crisis is more acute in government colleges located in rural areas or small towns, where, in many cases, students are being taught by guest teachers.
To tide over the crisis, the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (DSE) has directed teachers teaching one subject to teach another as well and even asked teachers of one college to take classes in another.
Sources in colleges said such measures would not be effective, and that the shortage of teachers was hampering the education of the students and delay in the completion of courses.
Some college authorities even said that they hired the guest teachers without any proper training, thus undermining the quality of education. They also said that the government should immediately begin direct recruitment of teachers to end the crisis and maintain education equality.
Principals of different colleges said they had written to the education ministry to create new posts in colleges without delay to improve the situation.
DSHE sources said there were 312 government colleges, including four Alia Madrassa, and 14 teachers training colleges in the country. There are 15,638 posts in these colleges. Of them, 113 posts of principals, 229 of professors, 119 of associate professors, 339 of assistant professors and 2,222 posts of lecturers are lying vacant.
The crisis of teachers is more serious in subjects such as marketing, home economics and finance, as the recruitment of teachers for these fields have remained frozen since 2007, the sources said.
At a recent conference of the principals on April 30, the crisis of teachers came to the fore when it was said that colleges located in district and upazila towns were acutely short of teachers.
On the other hand, the scenario in metropolitan Dhaka is completely different. Sources said there were 224 teachers against 200 posts in Dhaka College, 198 teachers against 174 posts in Titumir College, 145 teaches against 117 posts in Govt Bangla College, 41 teachers against 23 posts in Govt Biggyan College.
However, steps were taken to transfer some of these additional teachers to colleges outside metropolitan Dhaka. Acting principal of Sherpur Govt College, Md Sarwan Jahan, told The Independent that his college had 55 teachers against approved posts of 64. Weve a shortage of teachers to teach our 12,000 students. Weve also guest teachers to cover the crisis, but its not enough because such teachers are not properly trained, he said.
He also said that he had written to the ministry to create new posts in his college.
Principal of Nilphamari Govt Womens College, Abdul Gaffar, said, Weve a shortage of 10 teachers against 32 posts. We applied for recruitment, but there has been no result.
Of late, students who have already passed their masters courses are taking classes.
The principal of the Comilla Victoria Govt College said, We dont have sufficient teachers. There is no teacher for marketing and finance subjects. The DSHE has directed three teachers of the management department to take marketing classes. Mostafa Kamal, deputy director of the DSHE, said, As new courses have been started under the honours and masters courses, it has become difficult to recruit teachers because new posts have not been created.
He also said that though teachers were recruited through the PSC for the post of lecturers, it has become difficult to give promotion due to cases pending in the court. Many teachers are retiring at regular intervals. But these posts are not being filled. As a result, the crisis of teachers has been deepened, he added. He, however, said that the situation would be addressed soon by the education ministry, PSC and DSHE.
