Primary school teachers to go on strike from Sunday

Assistant teachers of government primary schools across the country have announced a full-day work abstention to press for three-point demands, including an upgrade of their pay scale. Their strike will begin on Sunday. Alongside this, they will stage a sit-in at the Shaheed Minar from tomorrow to demand implementation of their demands and to protest against the police attack in Shahbagh.

Assistant teachers of all government primary schools across the country have announced a full-day work abstention to press for three-point demands, including an increase in their pay grade. The work abstention will begin on Sunday. At the same time, they will stage a sit-in at the Shaheed Minar from tomorrow to demand implementation of their demands and to protest against the police attack.

The announcement was made on Saturday afternoon at the Central Shaheed Minar. Earlier, police attacked the teachers’ procession at Shahbagh using batons, tear gas, sound grenades and water cannons. Reports said over a hundred teachers were injured.

Teachers alleged that police attacked them without provocation. Police, however, claimed that when the teachers tried to march towards the Chief Adviser’s residence, Jamuna, ignoring police barriers, officers intervened to disperse them. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police said several police officers were also injured in the teachers’ attack.

Assistant teachers of government primary schools have taken to the streets with three demands — upgrading their pay scale to grade 10, ensuring 100 percent departmental promotion, and granting higher grades upon completion of 10 and 16 years of service.

There are 65,567 government primary schools in the country. According to the Directorate of Primary Education, a total of 384,000 teachers are employed in these schools.

On April 24, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education took an initiative to upgrade the pay scale of head teachers from grade 11 to grade 10 and assistant teachers from grade 13 to grade 12. However, assistant teachers expressed dissatisfaction with this move.

Later, the “Primary Teachers’ Demand Implementation Council” announced a sit-in programme from Saturday to press for three demands, including grade 10 pay scale.