Assistant teachers of government primary schools have started a sit-in at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka demanding 3 issues including salaries under the 10th pay grade.Teachers, under the banner of the 'Primary Teachers Demand Implementation Council', have gathered at the Shaheed Minar from different places since morning.
Their three-point demand includes placing assistant teachers in the 10th grade pay scale, removing complications in obtaining higher grades after 10 and 16 years of service and ensuring 100% departmental promotion opportunities.

''More than 20,000 teachers will attend this programme. Teachers are coming from faraway districts and many are still on the way. I call on all government primary school teachers to join the movement,'' said Khairun Nahar Lipi, general secretary of the Bangladesh Primary Teachers’ Association.

According to the Directorate of Primary Education, around 384,000 teachers are currently employed in 65,567 government primary schools across the country.

On April 24, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education upgraded the pay scale of headteachers from the 11th to the 10th grade and raised the 13th-grade teachers to the 12th grade. But the teachers are not satisfied with this decision.

Sun News/ra