Faculty, staff strike over new pension scheme; students hold quota demo
Teachers went on an indefinite strike over pension benefits yesterday, paralysing public universities across the country.
Also, students at Dhaka and Jahangirnagar universities took to the streets, demanding quotas for government jobs be abolished.
The teachers' strike began yesterday with the academics demanding abolition of the new Prottoy Universal Pension Scheme.
No classes, exams, or admission-related activities were done, most classrooms and libraries were locked, and barely any university buses left the sheds at the 35 universities where teachers and staffers were on strike.
As yesterday was also the first day of a three-day strike by the Inter-University Officers' Federation over pensions, no administrative work was done.
"We will not return to the classrooms until the demands are met," Prof Zeenat Huda, general secretary of Dhaka University Teachers' Association, told a rally on campus.
The protests follow a government decision to implement Prottoy pension scheme for recruits joining on or after July 1 the autonomous, self-governing, nationalised, statutory, or such organisations and their subordinate institutions.
Under the scheme, 10 percent of the monthly basic salary of an employee, up to Tk 5,000, will be deducted and given to their pension fund. The organisation will contribute the same amount to the fund, and interest will be added to it. There will be no one-time gratuity for the retiring employee.
At present, no money is deducted from the salary.
The current system includes a 5 percent annual increment in pension and allows encashment of earned leave -- provisions that are unclear or missing in the new scheme.
A finance ministry official said pension schemes like these are common across the world, adding that single-handedly paying the pension was a burden for the government.
After the government announced the scheme in May, teachers associations termed it "discriminatory" and called for its abolition.
The teachers have also been demanding a new pay scale and the inclusion of professors in the "super" grade.
There are over 16,000 teachers and 34,382 staff at 50 public universities that have nearly 300,000 lakh students.
At Dhaka University, the teacher's association shunned the institution's 103rd founding anniversary celebrations yesterday.
DU teacher Nizamul Hoque, secretary general of the Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers' Association, said the pension scheme robbed them of their sense of jubilation.
Addressing a rally, Prof Chandra Nath Podder said the new scheme was imposed without consulting the teachers.
The situation was similar at BUET, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Jahangirnagar and other universities.
At Rajshahi University, teachers demonstrated in front of the Senate Bhaban and the staff association near the administrative building.
At a rally on an otherwise empty Jagannath University campus, Prof Shaikh Masrick Hasan said there should be no disparity between current and future teachers.
Meanwhile, some DU students marched on campus demonstrating against the reinstatement of quota in recruitments for government jobs.
Jahangirnagar University students kept the Dhaka-Aricha highway blocked for several minutes.
The High Court on June 5 ordered a 30 percent quota for the freedom fighters' children in government jobs.
