The appellate division on Thursday upheld the High Court’s order to upgrade the pay scale of primary school headmasters to grade 10.
The three member appellate division led by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the order rejecting the leave to appeal plea of the state against the HC order.
On February 25, 2019 the HC passed the order during the final hearing on a writ petition filed by 45 school teachers including Government Primary School Headmaster’s Association president Riaz Parvez.
The court ordered the government to notify the 45 petitioner headmasters’ (trained and untrained) names in official gazette as second-class government officers and upgrade their pay scale to 10th grade.
Petitioners’ lawyer Salah Uddin Dolon said though the headmaster post is gazetted as second class officers they are paid under grades 11 and 12.
Other government officials of second class get paid under grade 10 which means headmasters are being honoured as government officials but being deprived of their rights, he said.
On March 9, 2014, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced upgrading the government primary school headmaster’s post to second class.
The ministry of primary and mass education later set grade 11 pay scale for the trained headmasters and grade 12 pay scale for the untrained ones.
Source: United News of Bangladesh