THE Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has recommended transferring of 522 government schoolteachers working at different high schools in the city for 10 to 33 years although they are not allowed to work at the same station for more than three years. We acclaim the step as many schoolteachers have become otherwise busy than and even established coaching business, land business and other questionable activities. The ACC recommendations has called for transferring teachers, posted in the same school in the capital for over 10 years, to schools outside the Dhaka Division.
It is clear the schoolteachers managed to overstay at schools in the capital by ‘lobbying’ with the authorities and using other means to be able to continue with their present station and run unauthorized business including coaching. Education is the thrust sector for it is tasked with educating the young people to create skill manpower so that they become good professionals at the end and can contribute to attaining higher economic growth. So teachers must be totally committed to teaching and government should promptly act on the ACC recommendation to properly place the teachers and make them attentive to duty.
Moreover, as per media reports, the ACC found seven District Education Officers posted as head teachers at seven schools and cautioned the Education Ministry to stop such practicing. It is not unknown that the teachers by greasing the authorities concerned manage to overstay in the respective schools for years after years. Quality education is right to all, but rural students hardly get touch with quality education because qualified teachers don’t prefer posting at District upazila level. Such mindset must stop.
The students from urban background far better in public examinations than their rural counterparts. The rural-urban resource and privilege gaps are so huge that it would reach a ridiculous proposition soon to think of any change in the situation overnight. The serious disparities and anomalies in our education system could not be changed overnight but the journey should begin now. We believe if the rural children get better teacher, adequate attention and resource support, they could perform better in many cases.
With the general erosion of values, the ideal of devotion to selflessness teaching is no more at work to educate our next generation. If teachers are selfish, students will not get proper lessons and suffer at the end. To arrest the decline, good teachers who love their profession as a mission have to be given due recognition by the community and the state. Meanwhile, irregularities in transfer and posting must end and in our view the ACC measure may help restoring discipline in the system. Those who have overstayed should not have any objection now to make room for others.
