New cadre service for primary education on cards

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The government is going to create a separate cadre service for primary education in a bid to improve educational standard by recruiting more meritorious individuals as officials and teachers.

The primary and mass education ministry has already sent for approval a proposal to the Chief Adviser’s Office to create the new cadre titled “Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS)-Primary Education” under Public Service Commission (PSC).

The proposal is likely to be approved at the next meeting of the Council of Advisers, ministry sources say.

Officials concerned say the cadre service is most likely to come into effect through the next circular for BCS examinations. The officials and teachers already working under the primary and mass education ministry will have to sit for special PSC examinations to upgrade their job.

The government has 29 cadre services for eight lakh officials. But no separate cadre service has been created for about 1.7 lakh primary teachers, who are working at around 38,000 government institutions across the country, say Banbeis records.

Primary and Mass Education Adviser Rasheda K Chowdhury said the ministry has been run by officers from other cadre services for long which hinders the dedicated improvement in primary education.

“Initiatives were taken to launch a separate cadre group a few years ago and the process is now at the final stage. It is expected that the decision would be approved soon. Personally, I hope it will improve the teaching standard and bring more accountability in all levels of the primary education.”

Rasheda expects that introduction of the cadre will help bring back disciplines to the huge establishment.

The Directorate of Primary Education last month submitted a summery report to the chief adviser. The report says meritorious graduates are discouraged to join education service as they think it offers no bright career.

“The primary education department has failed to improve the overall academic quality due to a lack of bright career for officials. Meritorious students will join the service if the new cadre group is created,” said Khondaker M Asaduzzaman, director general of Directorate of Primary Education.

Currently, on average 500 to 1,200 teachers and other officials are working under a thana education officer, meaning huge responsibility and workload on a single officer.

This number is half the total government officials in a single thana headquarters. Educationists believe the activities in primary level are very “slow and unimpressive” as the supervising thana education officer is a class II officer.

Delay in creating the separate cadre for primary and mass education results in resentment among the donor community as the government had pledged to do it under the second phase of Primary Education Development Programme project by December 2005.

A high-powered taskforce on development of primary education in 1992 suggested a separate cadre service for primary education. But the then government did not respond to it.

In that period, suggestion of creating the cadre was also submitted to the Planning Commission for ensuring education for all by 2000, sources of Directorate of Primary Education say.

Later in an agreement of second Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP), the government pledged to create a separate BCS cadre group for primary education by 2005.

But the cadre has yet to be created even two and a half years after the deadline, sources of the Directorate of Primary Education add.

Under the present directorate, 257 posts of 10 categories are eligible for BCS first class gazette officer.

Besides, other 10 category officers including additional director general, system analyst, programmer, procurement and supplier and thana education officer, PTI Instructor, URC Instructor, statistic officer, maintenance engineers and central officer are also eligible for first class but excluded from cadre service.

In the summery report it is mentions that the primary education does not get proper guidance from the officers as most of them come from other services and do not get proper opportunity to apply their skill.

The summery concludes that primary education includes the highest number of teachers and officials and in order to guide them properly, to enhance capacity and to bring dynamism a separate cadre service is a must.

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