MPO College teachers’ promotion

Md Moinuddin Chowdhury
When an employee is held in a higher and more responsible and dutiful position than his current position, we say that he has been promoted. This increases his salary and benefits.

However, promotion can be done without salary and benefits. In this case an only rank and respect increase which is called dry promotion.

According to the policy of human resource management, the responsibility of the authority does not end only by arranging staff recruitment, selection and training.

In order to increase the attraction towards employment in the related profession and organization and to keep the working people in the organization or related profession for a long time, formulation and implementation of proper promotion policy is essential.

In those institutions where this policy is not acceptable, the talented people may not come to the institution or in fact leave after some time.

Various studies have shown that there are more opportunities for promotion in Bangladesh’s state-owned and private businesses and public and private banks than in other jobs.

On the one hand, there is inequality in the promotion policy of teachers working in the educational institutions of Bangladesh. On the other hand, there is a lack of equality policy.

Inequalities exist in the promotion policy of teachers working in educational institutions in Bangladesh, on the one hand, and the lack of equality policy on the other.

For example, teachers working in public / private universities and government colleges in Bangladesh are gradually promoted from lecturer to professor, but MPO degree college teachers have the opportunity to be promoted only from lecturer to assistant professor.

On the other hand, the teachers of MPO registered intermediate colleges had the opportunity to be promoted from lecturer to assistant professor but in the current policy (2021 policy) their title has been renamed as Senior Lecturer even though their pay scale has remained unchanged.

It is pertinent to note that there is no post of Senior Lecturer in Government Intermediate College.

Interestingly, for the MPO-enrolled teaching community in Bangladesh, including degree colleges, there are conflicting policies and strategies for promotion from three perspectives, which are seen as a major obstacle to improving the MPO-enabled education system and, above all, the quality of education.

Such as- the policy of the Ministry of Education, the policy of the National University and the strategy related to the MPO registered teachers mentioned in the National Education Policy.

Such policy is completely contrary to modern human resource management policy. Not only that, it is in conflict with the constitution of the country and the strategy of national education policy.

The provisions of the National University and the National Education Policy stipulate that teachers working in MPO degree colleges and MPO colleges at all levels have the opportunity to be promoted from lecturers to assistant professors, associate professors and professors respectively.

However, in the Manpower Structure and MPO Policy, there is no provision for promotion of teachers in MPO colleges to Associate Professors and Professors (i.e., promotion opportunities are limited to Assistant Professors in Degree Colleges and Senior Lecturers in Intermediate Colleges).

In this context, it may be recalled that in the 2010 MPO policy, a notification was issued to create an associate professor post in an MPO-affiliated degree college, but for some unknown and mysterious reason, it was canceled in the 2018 policy.

Going a little deeper, we see that even though the teachers of the colleges run by the military accept MPO, they are promoted according to the rules and regulations of their organization.

On the other hand, teachers working in various large and traditional MPO colleges in Bangladesh, including Dhaka city, receive government benefits (MPOs) as well as promotions from lecturers to professors with various institutional benefits according to the institution’s own rules. Those who hold the post of principal / vice-principal are entitled to more attractive benefits.

Observations show that due to the availability of these facilities, the teachers of government colleges are also always interested in getting the post of principal / vice-principal in deputation in those colleges.

Observations further show that the teachers working in these financially affluent colleges are officially receiving MPO as lecturers / assistant professor but they are gradually getting promotion from college to Assistant Professor / Associate Professor / Professor following the provisions of National University. In other words, there are two types of promotion rules for them.

Not only that, they receive higher salaries and benefits than the teachers of government colleges. But the reality is that, they are too being deprived of promotion in the posts mentioned by the government as MPO teachers.

On the other hand, the teachers working in the city have the privilege of getting two such benefits and promotion from the college, but the teachers of the unfortunate rural colleges cannot even imagine it.

Not only that, as there is no monthly benefit from the colleges, most of the college teachers have to be satisfied with the limited benefits (MPO) from the government.

Due to lack of opportunities in MPO policy, assistant professors of MPO registered colleges in Bangladesh are not able to apply for the post of principal in different colleges.

Although all the institutions in Bangladesh have the opportunity to be promoted from lower to higher post step by step, the only exception is in the case of MPO registered colleges, which is making MPO teachers frustrated and mentally unbalanced. As a result, the quality of education is being hampered.

Therefore, in the interest of improving the overall quality of education, it is time to formulate a uniform and up-to-date promotion policy for MPO college teachers similar to various government and non-government organizations.

The writer is an assistant professor, Department of management, Sankuchail degree college, Burichang, Cumilla.