Cabinet in its regular weekly meeting on 7th September 2015 has approved the long expecting pay scale for different levels of servicemen of government, semi-government and autonomous bodies. Some important stakes of the servicemen had been having a longstanding dissatisfaction over the pay commission recommendation from the very beginning when it was first submitted to the government. It is no-doubt that this newly introduced pay scale has devalued and deprived primarily the teacher community -the highest intellectually vibrant section of the society. Teachers’ community especially the public university teachers have been in a movement for the demand of separate pay structure and righteous dignity in the warrant of precedence in line with our neighboring countries in the sub-continent. The ruling AL had also promised in their election manifesto in 2008 to introduce a separate pay structure for all levels teachers of educational institutions in society. Accordingly, immediately after the resuming in power, AL government took an initiative to formulate a separate pay structure for the teachers community and the then education advisor Professor Dr Alauddin Ahmed MP had made his recommendations to the government in the light of prevailing pay and dignity of teachers in the governments under SAARC nations. Until the announcement of latest pay scale, the teachers community of Bangladesh used to know that the government was going to implement the separate pay structure for them.
If the policy makers in the government mechanism look around the teachers pay and dignity in neighboring nations, they must find the rationale in favor of teachers demand for separate pay structure. For that reason, the political stream inside the government mechanism has been hesitating for last couple of months to announce the pay scale in its present form that was due since 1st July last. Lastly, cabinet has approved the pay scale with zero changes. This approved pay scale has awarded the tips to the bureaucracy while has pushed the university teachers into harsh tricks. It is not a mistakes-it is considered as a trick played by vested interests to demoralize the present movement of the teachers community of the country for their long standing demand for separate pay structure from primary to university level of educational institutions. Is it done intentionally to downgrade their position by four levels (i.e. below Principal Secretary, Senior Secretary, Grade-1 and Grade-2) in present pay scale? The trick is that, just downgrade them for 4-5 levels that will keep them intact to the movement for the previous pay, and as a result, they will be derailed and forget their longstanding demand of separate pay structure. It is really frustrating and unfortunate that an inappropriate manner is playing through such awful-hatred-unkind tricks with purely non-political teaching constituents of the society who use to sacrifice their entire life to teach and build up our children and future generation. The government that intentionally devalue and downgrade their most intellectual and meritorious section of the society can never survive in the functioning of its state mechanism. It needs to keep in mind that the most meritorious students who use to stand tops of his/her classes from primary to university level education become the teachers of the university in comparison to any other servicemen and employees of the government. Once there was such a great honor for the brilliant performance in the class and laboratory, the top ranked students were humbly requested with great invitation from the Department or from the University authority to start lectures in the class room and for that they did not need any formal appointment. In the time, there are changes in the procedures of appointment, but the theme to honor their brilliant performance has not changed at any level. It is regretful as well as painful that our present state mechanism is not capable to nourish the brilliants of our society. They seem to establish control over the meritorious of the society by bureaucracy rather than to be respectful to them and that ultimately lead them to be unable to establish order of merit in society. This is the moral duty of the society and government to establish the order of merit in pay and dignity for its citizens in all respects. If it is not ensured, the inherent struggle of the civilized society, state and government to establish liberty, freedom, equality, impunity and justice for every citizen under the rule of democracy will be jeopardized and vanished in the darkness, and therefore the major intuitions of the society will mislay their ways for the incessant efforts of nation building.
The content of the conflict has been ignited when government has created two more superior positions and grades in pay scale for the bureaucracy--Senior Secretary and Principal Secretary/Cabinet Secretary. It is praising that the government can take any such measure to give incessant encouragement for any section of its employees. At the same time, its mechanism needs to keep in mind that any such new measures will not jeopardize the status of other servicemen as well. It is regretful that the introduction of new two senior positions have affected and downgraded the present positions of the university teachers. The university teachers have the present positions as: Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor (pay grade-3), Time scale Professor (pay grade 2) and Selection grade Professor (pay grade 1). If you look carefully, pay grade 1 professor is also called as selection grade professor which, in fact, is equivalent to the position of Secretary (pay grade 1) of the bureaucracy. Even after that, government has created those two more superfluous positions and grades in the new pay scale for bureaucracy. However, government has also approved those two positions for three forces-Army, Navy and Air Forces. Even, Government has special arrangement of pay and privileges for the Justices of the higher Judiciary in the country. Any lay man of the society can understand this situation how the most brilliant professionals of the government has been devalued and deprived in this arrangement of pay structure. Does anybody need any extra knowledge to understand this large difference in the pay and privilege of the bureaucrats with the university teachers as displayed in the recent dodgy comments of our beloved Finance Minister?
Why it is needed to form such a super positions in the bureaucracy and for three other forces institutions of the nation. The inherent cause may be that to attract the meritorious students into those institutions. Now it is the duty of the policy makers and statesmen of the state mechanism to understand the circumstance of which institutions of a democratic society needs the meritorious students for their smooth running to achieve the incessant prosperity of the nation. The leaders in all level of the democratic society are taught and brought up by the enlightened learning from the university and by all levels of the academic institutions of the society. Our Ministers, MPs, bureaucrats, policy makers, doctors, engineers, scientists, civil society, army, police, businessmen, entrepreneurs, soldiers, as a whole, all expertise are built in the University and academic institutions. In that case, government needs to understand that the brilliant people need to stay in the university rather than in any other institutions of the society. The democratic leadership of the society needs to have control over all other institutions of the society, and that learning comes from in the university. Therefore, government should give all its strength to strengthen the breeding field of democracy, i.e. the university and academic institution- the highest echelon of the center of excellence in society. Lets look carefully the present trends in far and nearest nations around the world. They have been giving honor and superiority in pay and privileges to the teachers community of their society. This is the ground for which the teachers have been demanding the separate pay for them in accordance with the line of pay for the teachers in other nations around the world-at least as it is in the sub-continent. Needs to keep in mind that if you do not place the teachers in the top of the society, the normal order of the growth of moral, honesty and patriotism of our children and the future generation will be gone down.
It should not be such a matter to establish the ‘supremacy rule’ of the bureaucracy in society. It is the matter of our children for whom they prefer to accept as a model of their life to build up themselves as the future leaderships citizen of the country. The children of our future generation will not move around the bureaucrats or Army or any other institutions of the society. They move around only the teachers of the society The policy maker should understand the inherent sprit of society that the children of our future generation for a greater period of their life from the childhood to adulthood (5-25 years) moves around the teachers of the academic institutions. It is the period of building their moral, honesty and patriotism for the society. If we can build our teachers community as the model for our children and can make our teachers resourceful-respectful to our children—that will help to build our future generation to be more morally sound, honest and patriot—a corruption free individual will brought up from there in academic institutions. It is no doubt praising news I have seen in Daily Prothom Alo how nicely our education secretary is hugging his primary school teacher. Many of us have been doing this to our beloved teachers on some occasions when we return to village. What we need is to institutionalize this respectful behavior to them by all segments of our society. In the present atmosphere of our administration, a TNO or a DC or a SP orders a Principal/teacher to come and meet with him/her in his office. Will it not more be sound instance for our children if those bureaucrats go to the offices of the teachers to hear their views, if any? I mean if we can make our teachers more respectful, our children will be more inclined to teachers to be more morally rich, honest and patriot. Will it not be more prestigious decoration of a greater moral society if our cabinet secretary, principal secretary and forces’ chiefs will stand up when they will see the senior most teachers of the university? Will it not be more brilliant and great instances if our President, Prime Minister, Ministers, MPs, Leaders frequently visit the academic institutions formally or informally and share their views and exchange bows with teachers in front of our children? These great instances will make our teachers community more great, respectful and resourceful so as to make our children more enlightened as morally sound, honest and patriot as next generation citizen of our nation. Accordingly, the structure of pay and dignity for the teachers should be arranged in this rightful instinct of society.
How can we come out from this present turmoil of crisis? There are two approaches of solution- long term and short term. In the long term solution, the government must introduce an independent pay commission with multi-faceted expert members to initiate a separate pay structure for all levels of the teachers in the academic institutions. For short-term and urgent measures government can consider the following suggestions.
First: Government has cancelled the selection grade and time scales. In fact, selection grade and time scale have been introduced where promotion of the government employees is blocked. Now Government will make an arrangement in the new scale /grades for those who are already in those grades. For example, University Professors has been getting their pay in three grades: Grade 3, Grade-2 and Grade-1. The grade 2 pay was awarded by time scale and grade-1pay was awarded by selection grade which is equivalent to the scale of secretary in line of bureaucracy. Now government will treat these selection grade professors as “grade-1 professor” in line with present pay scale. In this way, government can keep the previous line of pay for the university teachers. In another way, as the selection grade and time scale cancelled, if the government wants to give a benefit to the university professors, it can transform their previous 3 grades of pay into 2 grades i.e. to grade-2 and grade-1. As a result, whole structure of pay scale for university teachers will be upgraded to one position. Lecturer will get the present pay scale of Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor will get the present pay scale of Associate Professor and the Associate Professor will get the present pay scale of previous grade-3 professor. Government can do this to establish an order of merit in society, which will also cover some of dis-satisfactions and grounds for present movement for better pay for the university teachers. A student who stands top rank in his/her all classes from primary tire to university level education should be employed in a superior scale (in the position of lecturer) than all other entry level government employment which is not in practice now. According to the present provisions of pay, in the entry level 1st class government services, lecturers, BCS cadres, non-cadres and other job holders get the similar pay scale. In present circumstances, in fact, we do not reward anything in pay or in privilege to those who stand tops in their classes at university level and become teachers in academic institutions. There should be a difference with lecturers of the university with other 1st class employees at the entry level in recognition to their superiority in merits. We should give them a higher pay in recognition of their brilliant performances in classes-we should give them something an extra pay. Accordingly, it will be praiseworthy for the government to upgrade the pay of lecturer to one position as it is the present scale of Assistant Professor. Only in this way, the lecturers of the university can be honored in pay for displaying their extraordinary brilliant results and performance in the classes of their all level education.
Second, government has created more two higher scales for bureaucracy only, which has made an anger difference with highest meritorious constituents of the society –the university teachers. It is a damaging loophole of this pay scale. It is an injustice to the teachers as well as all other government servicemen at any consideration. Government can’t block, legally and morally, the highest position service of the republic only for a single constituent-bureaucracy who will control rest of the cadres or servicemen of the state. Because, there are some other constituents who are by dint of their performance and merit is superior to bureaucracy. Those other meritorious constituent servicemen will not obey the order and control of the bureaucracy on them guided by their inherent nature of superior personality and individualism. Under present situation, it should be considered as a total disaster and disorder. Government can solve this problem in three ways: First: Government can dissolve those two superior pay scales and can follow the order of previous pay scale to come out from the present chaos. If it is not possible, second, government can keep open these two higher scales of pay for not only bureaucracy, but also for all cadres including university teachers, and in future the positions of senior secretary, cabinet secretary and principal secretary will be filled up by a competitive manner from all constituent of servicemen under a search commission/ regulated authority, and to implement this approach, government will have not required any additional revenue. However, if the bureaucracy is serious and inclined to keep those two senior pay scales to reserve only for their constituent, government can follow an alternative third approach to fill up the gap imposed by creating those two superior pay scales for bureaucracy. In that case, government need to introduce those two pay grades for the rest of cadres who feel them as deprived constituents. Especially, government can’t ignore the constituent of university teachers so as to introduce those two senior scales for them as they are considered superior by dint of their merit to all other constituent servicemen of the government. The parameters, provisions and quantity for those who among the university teachers will be qualify for those two superior pay grades will be created under a guideline of the University Grant Commission.
Third: the present position of the university teachers in the warrant of precedence has been igniting in a great dissatisfaction among them. To address this issue in a positive manner, I would suggest the government to create a pool of 3 grades for the Vice-Chancellors of the public universities so as to their pay and privilege. The grade-1 Vice-Chancellors will be in the rank of full/state minister of the government. The Vice-Chancellors of at least three universities-DU, BUET and BSMMU should be included for this privilege. If you look into the things carefully, you will understand that the highest meritorious students of the country use to take admission in Dhaka University, Medical colleges and BUET. The teachers and leaderships of these three institutions represent the highest echelon of meritorious and intellectual constituents of our society. There should be recognition in prestige and privilege for the leaderships of these three nations worthy universities. I have understood as a participant of many seminar, symposiums and civic gatherings, where both sides of them feel very shaky and look very poor when the Ministers/MPs and the Vice-Chancellors of these three universities sit together in the stages- academics switch to be burned in pains in their heart rather than to be exposed of themselves. As a result, many Ministers /MPs use to avoid the programs in Universities. Even many senior bureaucrats do not feel well to come to these top ranked universities, at least, my experience has seen their rare presence in the universities. We need to change this situation- we want our Ministers, MPs, Mayors, bureaucrats and future leaderships of the society will frequently come to the highest intellectual space of the society. As a result, both sides will be enriched by frequent interactions and sharing their views and as a result our society will advance quickly. Government currently gives this privilege to Justices of Supreme Court and UGC. Government should extend this privilege for the smooth functioning of the warrant of precedence. Accordingly, the grade-2 Vice-Chancellors will be in the rank of Principal Secretary/ Cabinet Secretary and the grade-3 Vice-Chancellors will be in the rank of senior secretary. Government also needs to upgrade the pay of national professor in line with the state minister. Government should also introduce a structure of privilege in the warrant of precedence for the Vice-Chancellors of private universities as well. We should consider these provisions for them as early as possible.
Lastly, we should keep in mind that earlier in the 1990s or before, there were only 4/5 universities in the country--now there are 121 universities in the country including 37 public universities. We need to consider that this is a larger part of professional servicemen at present in the country, and has already emerged as the dominating factor in the way to peaceful ride on power. Bureaucracy should keep in mind that they can’t act as like as they were in the 1990s or before. Need to understand that time has changed and it is not possible to control anybody under the dynamics of digital progressive society. The inherent dynamics of this digital society is that it will be guided, perused, molded and advanced by the meritorious and honest instinct of the society. In the coming days of the digital society, those who have the merit and virtue of honesty will stay- those who have not will be dumped-please do not mind for what I am using here such hard words. Please look at least to the neighboring nations-what they are doing in this regard.
Last but not the least, we should need to keep in mind that the most important and catalyst constituents for the survival and progress of political democracy is the educated middle class of the society. In any society, this educated middle class moves around the academic institutions of the society. This educated middle class where the key factors are teachers and students control the support base of political democracy. Please look and consider carefully, political parties or any other non-political organizations come to academic institutions for the support base and for the success of their movement. Why? Because academic institutions are the key to increase or decrease the support base for political parties or for government. It is not the matter whether they do politics or do not. It is the matter that only these academic institutions-primary to university level have the direct contact to the each and every member of our society-they use to come here for the purpose of education for their children. No other institutions in our society have such a range of contacts. This is the base and highest political and economic space where the supports of political government are determined. It is, no doubt, you will win if you take them in your consideration and you will lose if you do not.
This large constituent of the teachers and students has now the ability to influence positively or negatively of the power structure. Bureaucracy is also important for government. But only the academic institutions of the society has the larger influence and contacts with general mass of the society that can easily influence the support base of the government. It will be wholly foolishness under current circumstances for government to ignore them at any rate. What is the intrinsic cause of such revolutions in middle-east and around? These governments had done everything for their people- they educated them, fed them and made them economically affluent nation, but what they did not is that to ensure the share or political participation of already visible factor of such educated middle class into their power structure. We need to take lessons. We need to change many things in our government mechanism as per quickly changing trends of our society.
Lets do much more for the meritorious and brilliants of our society and establish the order of merit in all institutions of the state so that this nation is able to reach to the dream height of developing nation around the world by 2041.
Dr. AKM JAMAL UDDIN
Professor, University of Dhaka
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