25,000 teachers, staff to be recruited at technical institutes

The Education Ministry is going to recruit 6,000 teachers and 19,000 staff members at government polytechnic institutes and technical colleges to curb the lingering manpower crisis.

Of them, 18,000 will be recruited at polytechnic institutes and 7,000 at technical colleges.

The Technical and Madrasa Division of the Education Ministry has sent a letter to the Finance Ministry, seeking allocation of funds for the new recruitment of staff members at the polytechnic institutes.

Ministry sources said the quality of diploma engineering course will improve after the appointment of the new teachers and staff.

“Polytechnic institutes have been facing severe manpower crisis for a long time which is hampering regular academic activities,” Munshi Shahabuddin Ahmed, secretary of the Technical and Madrasa Education Division, told The Business Standard.

“Considering the matter, we are going to appoint a good number of teachers and staff. The process is going on and hopefully it will end within a short time,” he added.

The secretary said of the 25,000 new staff members, 6,000 would be teachers.

At present, the country has 49 government polytechnic institutes with 900 permanent teachers for 130,000 students. The teacher-student ratio at these institutes is 1:144.

With the new recruitment, the number of students is expected to rise.

The government has already planned to make the job of 876 polytechnic teachers permanent; these teachers were recruited under the Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP).

The government appointed 1,015 teachers under STEP in the face of protest by the Institution of Diploma Engineers Bangladesh (IDEB) staff in 2012 for teachers’ recruitment.

Munshi Shahabuddin said the teachers under STEP have already gathered experience from seven years of teaching. That is why the ministry thinks that they could be made permanent based on their eligibilities.