The teachers of government colleges across the country, who had been agitating for removal of “disparities” in the eighth pay scale, yesterday suspended their work stoppage following an assurance by the authorities concerned to meet their demands.
They said they took the decision of suspending their strike until February 29 at a meeting of the BCS General Education Association held in the capital.
“The teachers will go for agitation again if progress towards fulfilling their demands is not evident by that time,” said IK Selim Ullah Khandaker, secretary general of the association.
The principal secretary to the prime minister and the education secretary assured them that the government would accept their demands, Selim added.
Yesterday afternoon, the association’s President Prof Nasrin Begum and Selim Ullah met Education Secretary Sohorab Hossain, who assured them of meeting some of their demands, said sources.
From Tuesday, around 15,000 teachers and officials under the BCS general education cadre began a three-day work stoppage under the association’s banner at all government colleges in the country to press home their demands that include removal of “disparities” in the eighth national pay scale, upgrading the posts of professors and reinstatement of selection grade and time scale.
Professors of BCS general education cadre are grade IV officers, but around 50 percent of them used to get grade III through selection grade. But now they would have to go on retirement from grade IV as the government scrapped selection grade in the eighth pay scale, lowering their status, they added.
