Promotion Process Begins for Over 36,000 Vacant Head Teacher Posts in Government Primary Schools; Papers to Reach PSC This Month

The process of promoting teachers to head teacher posts in government primary schools has begun. To promote senior assistant teachers against more than 36,000 vacant head teacher posts, seniority lists are being prepared, service records verified and the documents needed for promotion collected, according to sources at the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE).

There are 65,620 government primary schools in the country, and head teacher posts are vacant in 36,235 of them. Senior assistant teachers will be promoted to head teacher against those posts.

DPE sources say the plan is to prepare all the necessary documents within this November and send them to the Public Service Commission (PSC). Once the PSC approves, the ministry will issue the gazette notification.

State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Bobby Hajjaj said the government attaches importance to promoting experienced and skilled teachers, and that the necessary administrative process for promotion has begun under the existing recruitment rules.

To complete the promotion process quickly, the Directorate of Primary Education issued an office order on Tuesday. Signed by the directorate's assistant director Irene Parvin, the order says the remaining complaints in the promotion process must be settled within the next seven working days.

The same order asks that the complete promotion list, together with the related documents, be sent to the Directorate of Primary Education through the divisional deputy directors within the following 15 working days.

A senior DPE official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plan is to send the promotion documents to the PSC within this month. After scrutiny and approval, the PSC will return them, they will go to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, and the ministry will then issue the promotion gazette.

The long-running legal dispute over primary teacher promotions centred on determining the seniority of nationalised teachers. Rules framed on September 29, 2013 said newly nationalised teachers would rank below the last directly recruited person. The High Court declared that clause illegal, and head teacher recruitment and promotion in government primary schools stalled.

When that case was later stayed, promotions of assistant teachers to head teacher began in a few districts in 2023, only for a court order to halt the process again.

On June 2 this year, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court ended the 13-year legal complexity over assistant teacher promotions. On October 25, the summary and directives of the 29-page judgment were published.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Primary Teachers Association president Md Abul Kashem has demanded that the promotion gazette be issued quickly. He said assistant teachers have been deprived of promotion for a long time and are mentally and socially distressed by it, and that their single demand of the government is that no more time be wasted on new bureaucratic excuses — the seniority list should be published and promotions given promptly.