Shawdesh Desk:

The government has initiated the process to recruit 35,000 more teachers at pre-primary and primary schools across the country.

A circular to recruit 25,300 at pre-primary and around 10,000 at primary schools will be published soon. The new recruitment will make graduation degree mandatory for both male and female candidates for the first time.

Earlier, the minimum qualification for female candidates was HSC or equivalent degrees and graduation for the male applicants.

As per the government’s decision, the previous quota system will not be followed this time in the recruitment as the job of the post of the assistant teachers is now Class II.

Primary and Mass Education Ministry Additional Secretary (School) AM Mansur Alam told the Daily Sun that they will publish the job circular soon.

Asked about the quotas system, including the freedom fighters, he said, “We will follow the government guidelines in this matter.”

The government in 2018 scrapped the quota system in the recruitment of Class I [Grade 9] and Class II [Grade 10-13] civil servants in the wake of months-long anti-quota movement by students and job seekers.

According to the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE), under the fresh recruitment process, there will be no quota facility for the children of freedom fighters and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and Ansars-VDP as the post of the assistant teachers is now Class II job.

Earlier, the children of freedom fighter had enjoyed 30 per cent quota, minorities 5 per cent, people with disabilities 10 per cent and Ansars-VDP 10 per cent in primary school job.

However, the 60 per cent women quota, 20 male quota and 20 per cent dependent quota will remain in force in the primary teachers’ recruitment system and 20 per cent science quota will also be included in the three-mentioned quotas.

As per the fresh recruitment process, the minimum educational qualification should be graduation for all candidates.

DPE sources said they recently sent a proposal seeking approval to issue circular for the new recruitment.

It has been learnt that the appointment process will start through publishing the circular at end of this month or early of October.

The Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) is modernizing their website to complete the application process online within one month. The candidate will include their SSC or HSC roll and registration numbers in their application.

The academic and personal information provided by the candidates will be scrutinized through automated software to a quick completion of the process, said an official.

Earlier, the online application fee was Tk 166 but the fees will be increased this year while the BUET and TeleTalk will help receive the applications, sending questions paper to exam centres, the evolution of exam paper and publishing the results.

Currently, there are over 3.5 lakh teachers at over 65,000 government primary schools across the country.