Primary head teachers will get salary at grade-10: SC

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to upgrade the salary structure of the headmasters of the government primary schools at grade-10 of the National Pay Scale and give them the status of second-class gazetted officer.

A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed delivered the verdict after hearing a review petition filed by the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

Senior lawyer Barrister Salah Uddin Dolon, who represented the teachers in court, said that the head teachers will receive benefits under this grade effective from March 9, 2014.

The then government on March 9, 2014 directed the authorities concerned to upgrade the status of head teachers of government primary schools to second-class, and the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education issued a gazette notification to this effect on the same day.

According to the gazette notification, head teachers of government primary schools were supposed to get salary at 10th grade.

But the ministry strategically fixed the salary at 11th grade and 12th grade of the pay scale for trained and non-trained headmasters of the government primary schools, which is contradictory to the 2014 gazette notification.

Later, 45 headmasters including Reaz Parvez, the then President of 'Bangladesh Government Primary Schools Headmasters Association', filed a writ petition challenging the legality of salary fixation by the government.

On February 26 in 2019, a High Court bench asked the government to grant 10th grade of the National Pay Scale to the headmasters of the government primary schools.

The court also ordered the government to notify their names in the official gazette as class-two gazetted officer, effective since March 9, 2014.

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