Teacher posts likely to increase at govt colleges
Teacher posts ranging from lecturer to professor are finally going to increase at all government colleges. All government colleges will be categorised into four segments, with 10 to 16 teachers for every subject based on the category.
However, there will be one more teacher for English and Bangla subjects each. Besides, a hierarchy has also been formulated for the information and communication technology (ICT) subject.
According to sources at the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHS), a decision was taken at a meeting of the public administration ministry on this matter at the beginning of this month. From now on, posts will be created according to the new organogram.
DSHE director general professor Nehal Ahmed said the public administration ministry had given a green signal on the creation of posts at 11 big colleges. He told Prothom Alo that the existing teaching crisis will be gone once posts are created as per the new structure, and the quality of education will also improve.
Currently, there are more than 650 government colleges in the country. As per the old manpower structure, there are about 15,000 posts of BCS (Bangladesh Civil Service) education cadres at various government colleges and other education-related government offices. Since many of those posts remain vacant, colleges struggle to conduct their education activities. The crisis is more acute in particular at colleges outside Dhaka.
According to DSHE sources, discussions on the proposal to create about 12,000 teacher posts at one go have continued for the past couple of years, but nothing worked. Several people involved in education opined it is not practical to create such a large number of posts at one go. So, it was decided later that posts would be created separately by counting the colleges.
In continuation of this initiative, the education division proposed to create 1,493 posts ranging from lecturers to professors at the 11 largest government colleges in the country. These colleges are Dhaka College, Eden Mohila College and Government Titumir College in Dhaka, Government Brajalal College in Khulna, Murari Chand College in Sylhet, Rajshahi College, Anand Mohan College in Mymensingh, Carmichael College, Rangpur, Government Brojomohun College, Barishal, Chittagong College and Cumilla Victoria Government College. A meeting was held at the public administration ministry recently to decide on the matter.
A source present at the meeting said the meeting discussed the standard setup or pattern created by the 1987 review committee. As per the hierarchy of public administration, there will be more positions on the bottom and the number of positions gradually decreases as it goes up. So, the ministry approved the standard setup changing the staffing pattern of 1987 slightly.
It was also decided at the meeting that a new standard setup will be created by categorising higher secondary, bachelor's degree (pass, subsidiary), bachelor (honours) and masters level colleges in four separate classes – A, B, C and D category. The education ministry will propose the categorisation, followed by sending it to the public administration ministry.
There will be a total of 16 teacher posts in each subject at the colleges offering higher secondary, bachelor's degree (pass, subsidiary), bachelor (honours) and master's, and that includes two posts for professors, three for associate professor, five for assistant professor and six posts for lecturer.
For colleges offering higher secondary, bachelor's degree (pass, subsidiary and master's, there will be 10 teacher posts for each subject. There will also be 10 teacher posts at each subject for colleges offering higher secondary, bachelor's degree (pass, subsidiary) graduation (honours).
One more lecturer post in Bangla and English subjects will be added to the colleges offering higher secondary along with bachelor's (honours) and master's degrees. Besides, the number of teacher posts for ICT subjects will vary from there to seven based on the category of the college.
Sources concerned said an amendment has been proposed to create posts at 11 government colleges as per the new decision.
Usually, the DSHE places a proposal first, which then is decided at the ministry, followed by sending it to the public administration ministry. If the proposal gets the finance ministry’s approval, it will be placed at the meeting of the National Implementation Committee on Administrative Reforms /Reorganisation (NICAR). The DSHE officials expect since the public administration ministry has given a green signal, the NICAR will give positive feedback.
An official who attended the meeting of the public administration ministry told Prothom Alo on condition of anonymity that it has been initially decided that new posts will be created at the large colleges in districts, which will be followed by the creation of more posts in accordance with this stricture at other colleges based on the necessity. The official opined crisis will ease once new posts are created as per the new structure.