PUBLIC university teachers have called for one day strike on Tuesday demanding separate pay scale and their proper status which they said have been downgraded in the new pay scale announced in May this year. There is a growing fear that teaching and other academic activities on public universities throughout the country may suffer setback if the teachers continue the strike as they have threatened in absence of quick action by the government to mitigate their concerns. The government is preparing to implement the new pay scale soon without addressing the teachers’ concerns. So the teaches of 22 public universities have given the call for strike to make their case.
The problem is that public university teachers have declined to accept the new pay scale as it stands to have down graded the senior grade professors below the senior secretaries. Public university teachers want that senior secretaries and senior professors must enjoy the same pay and benefits and so also university professors and secretaries must be on equal footing. They are also demanding correction of the warrant of precedence in state functions. In fact the new pay scale has created a situation which the varsity professors are not only defying it, many believe it is essentially focused on appeasing the bureaucracy with lavish pay and allowances exponentially widening income gap with ordinary people and private sector professionals. The pay scale again offers more benefits to senior level bureaucrats creating more sensitivity to lower grade employees who are threatening unrest.
In our view the best solution may rest in a separate pay scale for the public university teachers as they are demanding without bringing them to any comparability with bureaucrats in terms of their services, pay and allowances.
University teachers have a special status and it is not right for them to compare their position with that of the bureaucrats who are of altogether different class. But we support that university teachers deserve better salaries so that we get best ones as teachers. It is a shame for public university teachers to feel happy as activists of political parties.
Needless to say, we are respectful to the demands of the public university teachers but many also wonder at the same time whether the activists of political parties are worthy teachers. Most teachers work on lien for non-government organizations and keep away from classes. Many don’t have involvement with basic research and yet a vast majority of new recruits is potentially ruling party political workers like in the past with poor academic feat. The nation is ready to equip the teachers with the best pay and allowances but how far they can rightly claim it is the big question. It is sad to say that not a single public university from Bangladesh could get even a modest place on the world list of best performing universities in the past several years.
