Rifat Chowdhury Suheli :
I heard this since I was a little kid. Very much influenced by this I grew up with a view to undertake the task of nation building. The aim being so, I got B.A. Honours in English Literture from Sylhet Govt Degree College under CU and M.A. in English Literature from DU. After that I did B.Ed from Govt. T.T.College, DU. All of this I did in order to join an honourable profession called ‘Teaching Profession’ and engage myself as a nation builder. I then joined a Secondary High School. As a starter, my pay scale was Tk. 1350 or something like that. It was in 1991. So meagre a pay scale. My peon used to get more than that of mine. With that pay-package my better-half used to laugh at me. I said, all the teachers get that as MPO of govt rule in a Secondary High School. May be, it is an honourable job and there is so much honour in this job that people do not care about salary. Besides, there is less working hours and a lot of holidays. What then both my life- partner and I missed is that it was a ‘lower than the pay scale of a peon’. And as such its status was lower than that of a govt. peon’s!
In govt. offices or private sectors; officers, doctors, engineers, bankers, lawyers – all being simple graduates – have Class I status as a starter. Now the question is who gives honour to this teaching job in a secondary high school-govt or public? Do they do that willingly or in order to camouflage a whole sector of dedicated teachers who are not only graduates but are also post-graduates in education? Since when did they do this to demean the teachers of this sector? Why did this point escape their eyes? Isn’t it now clear as the sun in the sky? Previously, the status of this sector was lower than that of a peon. It took 42 years to find this and promote it to the Second Class status. Is it something worth mentioning ? When a simple graduate enjoying Class 1 status and relishing benefits entitled to it in the cadre and other services, then a teacher having Honours, Masters and post-Graduate degrees in education, serving in high schools is treated with discrimination. Isn’t it injustice!
This is a critical issue in the education policy and this should be redressed now. Secondary High School teachers should be on the same level of others. Most of whom hold only a graduate degree. Their salary should be on the same level like others. Extra qualifications should be treated with extra increments. The more the level, the more the increments. The education policy should be complete with this for once and for all. The honour of a secondary high school teacher should be restored for all time to come. There should be no looking down upon the teachers who are the builders of the presidents, prime ministers, justices, generals, lawyers, doctors, officers, engineers, managers, bankers, philosophers, teachers and the likes.
Empowered in Class I status, let the teachers be in the reserve of the govt to fill in all the empty govt. posts in the offices at times of need to run the office works. With their educational qualifications, the teachers are the fittest persons to do the desk works. When this happens, students will not have the courage to show disrespect towards a teacher.
Teachers play an important role in the transition period of boyhood to manhood. They mould their student’s nature to become good citizens. The huge task, mentally and physically, a teacher does is compared to nothing but a Herculean job. There is a saying, if a mother is not respected and honoured by the father, then the children will dare to show disrespect and misbehave or even assault their mother. The teacher’s condition in Bangladesh is just like this kind of mother. They are not honoured and respected by the government policy. No wonder, why students dare to disrespect, attack and raise hands on the teachers. This is the root cause and should be redressed without delay.
The working schedule of a teacher is like this : 9 am to 12 am special class or model tests, from 12pm to 4.30 pm, general class: from 4.30 to 5.30 pm meeting with the Principal or Headmaster. After that long hours of work a teacher comes home with bundles of exam papers. At home, they have to spend at least three hours in perusing them at night or day. It devours all the days including Fridays. Some times it takes the whole night to complete the job disrupting the peace and happiness of family life. The pressure is so much that household affairs come to a standstill and chaos reigns to put a teacher in the family gallows of criticisms. To worsen the situation, public exam papers and national election duties, intrude twice a year and once in every five year; in some teacher’s life, when a teacher hardly has time to eat or sleep. If the family is kind and sympathetic then the family suffers a lot day after day for this intrusion. A teacher has often to hear this at home: leave this job. It is the only job where a post-Graduate person has to work on an average 9am to 5.30pm + 3hrs at home equalling 11.30 hours a day. Can you swear upon that teaching job is easy with less hours spent at school and a lot of holidays. As bread winners, a teacher is forced to work in free time to meet health, house rent and food costs. All these forced a teacher to experience untold mental agonies and often to lead life in poor standard.
Now, I come to the point of holidays. A teacher has no holiday other than the casual leaves. For hartals, Fridays are often taken for the missed schedule. Please, don’t say about summer holidays and winter holidays. They are for the students and not for the teachers as most of the terminal tests are followed by such vacations. So during this period each teacher is laden with 6 to 9 bundles of exam papers followed by other formalities in preparing and making of the result sheets and report cards. Again it must be mentioned here that each bundle comprises of 80 to 90 pieces of exam copy sheets with 4 to 8 leaves each if it be a compulsory subject. The English teachers and the religion (of Islam) teachers suffer most as they have to take on an average five classes per day, facing a minimum of 400 student’s class works + home works and two class tests + 2 yearly exams. Let me bring the true picture before the readers. The figure is 80 x 5= 400 C.W.s + 400 H.W.s + 400 x 2=800 C.T.s + 400 x 2= 800 Term Tests Paper making a total of 400+400+800+800=2400 copies of scripts. Now how many hours are spent in perusing the exams papers, you please make out. Let me help you …. one can go through four or at best five English exam answer sheets in one hour if he/she is honest. For a bundle of 80 pieces of exam answer scripts, an examiner needs 80/5=16 hours. If four hours are spent per day a teacher badly needs four day’s to complete a bundle. Now would a family allow him/her spend 4 hours per day especially when his/her salary is so poor – lower than that of a peon in govt office. But that is the ground reality about BA (Honours) MAO B Ed. assistant teachers enjoying govt. MPOs or no PM. categories. Alas! What a huge balk of teachers fall in this portion who are helping the country to come out from illiteracy.
Besides, JSC and SSC exam papers numbering 500 to 1000 answer scripts or scrutiny works are also added to these. One thing more, I haven’t mentioned about, is the model Tests. Do these figures by any chance seem less work for anyone to do? It is such a huge task that it crushes a teacher’s health and after twenty years the most beautiful teacher becomes a spectre, infested with various diseases. Their buaish salary is so poor that it cannot cover their honour facing the cost of living. With these vivid facts, no bright generation will ever apply for this job. The so-called ‘honourable’ job can no longer hoodwink the internet generation. They know what is status and what is discrimination. Can a turtle breed a tiger? So the builder of a nation should be treated with equal status, salary and honour. They should be ranked as Class I gazetted teachers who are working in the high school and Higher Secondary Schools sectors. They should be enrolled through a separate PSC. There should be a ladder of promotion from Assistant Teacher to Senior Teacher, Assist. Head Teacher to Vice Principal/Principal just like any other institutions. The promotion should be on the seniority and best performance basis. It should be open to all having BA (Hons), Masters, B.Ed. M.Ed in the High to Higher Secondary level plus 15 years uninterrupted services in the institution. In this way a complete discipline will be created in the education sector.
The farcical Shikkakh Nibondhon (school enrollment), which loses validity after 5 years, should be dropped for ever from the agenda. This has done no good and it should go off of the record of teacher’s lot immediately to save the teaching job from this type of insults. If you don’t have faith in any of the degrees then please don’t expose your short comings so nakedly by adopting so demeaning acts. We want quality people in teaching but and at the same time promise no future for them. How long can we hold on to this.
It should be loud and clear that like any profession, teaching should be treated as Class I job beginning with Assistant Teacher to Senior Teacher to Assistant Head to Vice Principal and to end up as Pincipal of the same higher secondary school – a complete ladder to climb with distinction in the career. There should be no lecturership in the Higher Secondary Schools. By merging Grade 9 and Grade 8 into one Grade. There should be (from nursery to twelve) same criteria of qualification for teachers namely – graduation + post graduation in teaching. This will create teachers. who can serve anywhere in any capacity facing the need in the school comprising nursery upto VIII called junior section and Class IX to XII as Senior Section. In the schools, those who are yet to get B.Ed or M. Ed, let them get it in no time. In this way a complete discipline will be brought in the Secondary and Higher Secondary School Sector. All the Secondary Schools should be converted into Higher Secondary Schools where each student will pay to get education. Colleges like Notre Dame should henceforth open Degree Section to remain as college. And let the primary schools teachers have another portfolio for themselves, as Class II junior teachers. (To be continued)
