Masum Billah :
The Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) issued an order on 07 January 2021 to get the non-governent teachers ready for receiving their MPO salary through Electronic Fund Transfer ( EFT) system that sounds smart and modern. It has also ordered to be ready with nine types of documents that really has thrown the teachers into a state of serious tension as they sense the smell of harassmaent to collect and make these documents alright.
Academic certificates issued by the education boards were Bengali that have been translated into English to keep teachers’ names recored in the computer data while they started getting MPO salary and then the spelling of Bengali names were written in different ways in English . Examples can be given thus-someone’s name is Kvgiæj in the certificate in Bengali that has been written `Kamrul’ in computer data but in the national ID it has been written as ‘Qamrul’. DSHE has issued the order that the spelling of name must be same in the MPO sheet, board certifcates and in the national id. This kind of order is valid and reasonable indeed. But the problems caused by the computer operators in any of the governemnt offices cannot be changed or corrected easily. The name wrongly written in the national id cannot be changed easily either. Similary, wrongly written name in the MPO sheet does not see any easy way to get it corrected. Getting anything corrected or changed from DHSE for a teacher from a remote district is not an easy task. A teacher is not sure when she can meet the relevant person at DHSE as they remain busy with attending meeting either at DHSE or outside DSHE. After watinign for a long time , whole day or several days even , if one can meet the desired official (may be Director Secondary) he will not listen to you carefully as he has several other priorities. Solving teachers’ problems hardly comes within their important task list. Even though, he listens and takes your prayer and documents, you cannot expect to get the thing done easily. As he will give it to his clerk or computer operator who will not deal with the affiar sincerely and honeslty. Many teachers complained that the problems caused in DSHE have been tried by them to get corrected even at the cost of hush money, however things could not have been done okay .
In national identity card one or two alphabetical problems appear that things are not unknown to us. Individually teachers are not responsible for that and the people working for the governemnt with some rare exception always try to find with these faults of the citizens to throw them into a quagmire without guiding or helping them. As DSHE has ordered MPO enlisted teachers will have to correct their spelling of their names and it must be same in all the relevant documents otherwise their salary would not get deposited in their accounts. Now the quesiton is how DSHE will manage these affairs? They don’t have any systematic way to address these problems and I think it’s a gigantic task to deal with the whole affair from Dhaka DSHE. If works can be decentralized, the service would have been much better.
We see several desks for giving the same service to the customers in the private or foreign organzations. Certain people will come to you for help and they will guide you so that your service can be done shortly and easily. Even, the officials also come out of their respective room/desks to talk to the customers and ask whether they have any problem. Their suborinates never want to show the gathering of people before their higher officials. So, they remain active and alert and thus works are done immediately. We experience just the oppostite picture of this in our state run offices. They give serive through one room, one officail. If he/she remains absent or late, customers have to wait for uncertain time. They don’t have any liability. And the similar situaion prevails in all the offices of the governemnt. It is interesting that the citizens don’t have any place or organziation to lodge their complaints in case they fail to get their service done timley and smoothly.
DSHE must give importance to the fact that it does not have enough capacity to deal with the affiar of more than five lac teachers. Neither it does have any sound system to get something corrected easily and in an honest manner. No sound system exists there to satisfy the needs of the teachers who throng to this office everyday from the remotest parts of the coutnry. DSHE must take time to deal with the whole affair very sincerely, technically, efficiently and honestly wihout creating any threat for the teachers and harassing them. It can talk to the teachers having problem district wise and time must be fixed for particualr areas to listen to the problems of the teachers. It would be much better if the correcton can be done district or maximum region wise.
We know it’s not an easy or simple task to eradicate the problems overnight that have developed for a long time. Still we believe if steps are taken , gradually the degree of harassment of teachers will start lessening otherwise the noble initiative of the government to give salary of non-governemnt teachers through EFT will throw them into a difficult situation and they will remain deprived of the good steps of the ministry of education. We think DSHE will deal with the whole affair efficiently and honestly taking all the points discussed above into consideration.
(Mr. Billah works for BRAC Education and President- English Teachers’ Association of Bangaldesh. Emal: [email protected] )
