Teachers seek PM's intervention
Hundreds of teachers and employees not enlisted under the monthly pay order (MPO) continued their demand for MPO enlistment for the third consecutive day yesterday in front of Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka.
They took position in the area since Wednesday, demanding intervention of the prime minister in this regard.
“We will continue our protests until we get an opportunity to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” said Golam Mahmudunnabi Dollar, president of Non-MPO Educational Institution Teachers and Employees Federation.
Some 10,000 to 15,000 teachers and employees under the federation's banner are pressing their demand for MPO enlistment, he said.
He claimed that they got assurances from the prime minister through the then personal secretary of the PM on January 5, 2018 during their movement to realise the demand.
“We broke our hunger strike on July 11 last year in front of press club with the assurance of then education minister Nurul Islam Nahid,” he added. The education ministry also received applications for MPO enlistment from them online, but there has been no development since then, he said.
MPO is the government's share in the payroll of the non-government education institutions. Under the scheme, the government gives 100 percent basic to the teachers of non-government schools. The teachers also get a lump sum amount as other allowances from the MPO.
As per the rules, the educational institutions first come under MPO facilities and then the government enlists the teachers in the payroll.
According to leaders of the federation, the number of non-MPO educational institutions is 5,242, where around 80,000 teachers are working without any pay, some for more than a decade.
This is because the institutions do not have the ability to pay the teachers while the government stopped bringing these institutions under its payroll for, what they said, a fund crunch.
After a suspension of six years by the then BNP-led alliance government, the Awami League-led government revived the MPO facility in 2010 as per its electoral pledge, enlisting 1,624 private secondary and higher secondary schools and colleges in the MPO scheme.
The rest of the non-MPO teachers have been organising various protest programmes since then.
Currently, more than four lakh teachers and employees of over 26,340 secondary schools, colleges, madrasas and technical institutes are receiving MPO facilities.
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