Police stopped a march toward Shahbagh by government primary school assistant teachers who were demanding their three-point charter, including upgrading their salary to the 10th grade.
The incident took place on Saturday afternoon, shortly after the teachers began their march from the Central Shaheed Minar. Police used sound grenades and water cannons to disperse the crowd.
President of the Bangladesh Primary School Assistant Teachers’ Association, Md. Shamsuddin Masud, said, “It seems our secretaries and advisers have no pens to sign the salary grade order. So today we will symbolically hand over pens to them, hoping they will implement our demands.” He also warned of tougher movements if the demands are not met.
The teachers stated that while officials of various ministries, nurses, agricultural officers, police sub-inspectors, and assistant teachers of government secondary schools receive the 10th grade salary with just a bachelor’s degree, primary school assistant teachers have bachelor’s degrees along with additional training (C-in-Ed, B.P.Ed., or B.T.P.T.) but are still kept in the 13th grade. They declared that they will not return home without a formal government notification.
Their three demands are:
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Salary upgrade to the 10th grade,
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Removal of complications in obtaining higher grade benefits after 10 and 16 years of service,
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Assurance of 100% departmental promotion.
There are 65,567 government primary schools in the country with about 384,000 teachers. Earlier, the government moved to improve the grade of headteachers, but the protesting teachers say the initiative is insufficient and does not address their demands.