Bangladesh News

The process is on to hurriedly recruit 782 pro-BNP-Jamaat people under the Secondary Education Sector Development Project (SESDP) as beneficiaries in the education sector during the five years of the immediate past BNP-Jamaat government are manipulating the process.
Whereas all recruitment processes in the education sector usually involve written tests and viva voce, the recruitment for the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded seven-year project is being conducted only through taking viva voce that began on December 27.

The SESDP is the follow-up project of five-year long Secondary Education Support Programme (SESP) that ended on December 31, 2006. All the officers of the SESP project were also recruited through written test and viva voce.

The recruitment process in the SESDP will end by January 16, education ministry sources said.

A syndicate working in the education ministry, Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) and SESP project, who are conducting the recruitment process, are out to complete the process before the next general election, as it would serve both ‘financial and political interests’.

The financial interest is to take huge amount in bribes while the political interest is to involve the new recruits in the election-related duties at the upazila level.

For recruitment under the SESDP, dishonest officials of the education ministry and DSHE arranged circulation of two advertisements on November 11 and 20 putting some controversial conditions.

The two advertisements mentioned that aspirants would have to send applications with Tk 100 and Tk 50 pay order or bank draft from any bank branch in the capital within ten days from the date of advertisement publication.

As the advertisements were published in November when several political parties enforced countrywide blockade programmes, most of the aspirants outside the capital could not send their applications fulfilling the condition of sending bank draft and pay order from a Dhaka branch of any bank.

Usually such advertisements allow sending pay order or bank draft from any branch of specific banks across the country.

The syndicate of education sector officials, who were most beneficiaries during the last five years of BNP-Jamaat coalition rule, worked behind attaching the unusual conditions in the two advertisements and allocating very short time for application so that not many candidates other than those loyal to the BNP-Jamaat alliance could apply for the posts under the SESDP, sources said.

The advertisement published on November 11 sought application for the post of one system analyst, 14 programmers, 333 assistant inspectors, 91 research officers, 222 upazila academic supervisers, one administrative officer, one accountant, two assistant programmers, one documentation officer and 18 computer operators.

The advertisement published on November 20 asked for 73 data entry operators, one accountant, one stenographer, one storekeeper, four drivers, one cash officer, 16 guards and one sweeper.

Giving the hope of incorporating 1,500 staff of the SESP project into the SESDP, the syndicate has already collected around Tk 7 lakh and a half, sources said, adding that the syndicate members also told them to pay Tk 10 to 50 thousand each after finalising the recruitment.

Most of the SESP staff are also loyal to the BNP-Jamaat alliance as the SESP started in January 2002 when the alliance government was in power.

The DSHE issued a show cause notice on December 7 in the wake of allegation of taking Tk 7 lakh 50 thousand in bribes.

The ’secret pact’ was revealed following a ‘conflict of interest’ as the number of aspirant candidates loyal to the BNP-Jamaat is higher than that of the vacant posts, sources said.

Denying the allegations, Additional Secretary of Education Ministry Abdul Matin Chowdhury said the recruitment process is being conducted through viva voce as the SESDP has already begun from January 1 while it will end in 2013.

He, however, declined to say anything when asked about the condition of sending pay order from only Dhaka branches of any bank during the countrywide blockade programmes.

“I will try to manage job for your candidates in SESDP. Ask them to contact with me very soon,” SESP system analyst Abul Fazal Belal said when this correspondent pretended to request him for two candidates.

Around 19,000 candidates have been primarily selected for viva voce, education ministry sources said.