UGC wants separate pay scale for varsity teachers

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UNB, Dhaka :The University Grants Commission (UGC) in its recently published annual report 2014 recommended introducing a separate salary structure and increasing benefits to university teachers to attract meritorious people to the profession.”It’s needed to introduce a salary structure for the university teachers alongside increasing other benefits with a view to attracting meritorious to the teaching profession to ensure quality of education in universities,” said the report.Besides, the UGC annual report has advocated for establishing ‘University Teachers Training Academy’ urgently to develop the competence of the university teachers. “Academic skills of the university teachers need to be enhanced through professional trainings. To achieve the goal, it is urgently needed to establish a University Teachers Training Academy,” it said.UGC chairman Prof MA Mannan told UNB teachers, mostly freshers, cannot deliver 100 percent of their capacity during teaching for lack of professional trainings, and there is no alternative to arranging trainings for university teachers for bringing out their professional excellence.There are arrangements for training school and college teachers but not university teachers in the country, though there are such training institutes for university teachers in many countries, he added. “In our country, a student joins teaching profession without any training, just after completing a university degree with brilliant academic result. But, the fact is that a good student doesn’t become a good teacher in many cases,” Prof Mannan said.Two former chairmen of the UGC also supported the incumbent chairman over setting up such a training academy for the university teachers saying that though there are training institutes for primary, secondary, college teachers, there is no such training institution for university teachers.Former Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University and immediate past chairman of UGC Prof AK Azad Chowdhury said imparting education is an art. “Training is essential to develop the art…Training is needed for acquiring good communication skills.”Former UGC chairman Prof Nazrul Islam said training is essential for teachers, especially for new teachers to remove weakness as they face many problems at the early stage of their professional life.”I think this initiative will play a vital role in flourishing the excellence of teachers. The academy should train up the teachers about morality apart from some professional matters,” he recommended.

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