Many government colleges offering honours and masters courses are facing acute shortage of teachers. This is hampering education.

Sources in the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) said there are around 15,000 posts of teachers in 327 government colleges. About 3,000 of these are lying vacant.

The crisis is more acute in the case of lecturers. Around 2,500 posts of lecturers are lying vacant. Besides, 270 posts of assistant professors, 150 posts of associate professors and 70 posts of professors are lying vacant.

The shortage of teaching staff is more acute in remote areas at the upazila level.

Teachers prefer to move to better places like Sadar town or the capital, principals of some colleges said.

Education is being badly hampered in the absence of teachers for a long time in their colleges, they added.

The college authorities fear that if the vacant posts are not filled soon, it would be difficult to maintain quality education, which is a major target of the Sustainable Development Goal.

The Bhola Government College has only 45 teachers, though it has posts for 90, to teach around 3,000 students.

College principal Prof. Parvin Akhter told The Independent that her college has 16 departments for honours and master's courses, let alone the intermediate level or preliminary master's courses. “There has been no teacher in the Islamic studies department for one year. The economics department has only one lecturer. Even the chemistry department has one teacher. The English department has only three teachers. There is a shortage of at least 35 lecturers,” she said.

The shortage is badly hampering teaching in the college and the teachers are having to take a huge workload, she added.

“Several times I have visited the education ministry and the department concerned for appointment of teachers. But still I have not got any response. It would be difficult to impart quality education like this,” she observed.

“Many teachers don’t want to stay here. When some colleges are not getting teachers, especially in the remote areas, there are additional teachers in urban areas,” she noted.

The Jhalokati Government College has 67 teachers out of 92 created posts. The English department has only two teachers, while the Economics Department has only two lecturers. The chemistry department has only two teachers.

Its principal, Prof. Joydev Sajjan, said he has been facing serious problems in imparting education with an inadequate number of teachers. “Classes are not being held regularly due to the shortage of teachers. Besides, the posts of teachers need to be increased as we have around 13,000 students,” he added.

DSHE sources said the shortage of teachers has been created due to the lengthy process of recruitment through the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exams and delay in promotion and creating of new posts.

The DSHE said they are getting teachers for the post of lecturer through BCS exams, but it is not filing up the vacancy of teachers. It generally takes around two years to complete a BCS exam and in the meantime many teachers are going on retirement.

However, the DSHE mentioned that they expect to get some teachers from different ongoing BCS exams. From the 36th BCS, the DSHE will get 947 lecturers. From the 37th BCS, it will get 225 lecturers and the number will be 960 from the 38th BCS.

Besides, the DSHE has recently sent a proposal to the public administration ministry, recommending recruitment of 1,215 teachers against the vacant posts through a special BCS exam, which might be the 40th BCS.

DSHE sources said the acute shortage of teachers cannot be mitigated without holding any special BCS exam.

“We have sent a list to the public administration ministry, recommending recruitment of 1,215 teachers as lecturers. The ministry will send it to the Public Service Commission for the recruitment,” assistant director of the DSHE, Delwar Hossain, told The Independent.

The college authorities said recruitment of teachers and promotion should be done in time to resolve the crisis.