Around 15,000 recently MPO-enlisted teachers of private schools and colleges are still waiting for their benefits from the government. After demanding for long nine years, the government finally brought 2,737 educational institutions across the country under the benefit known as monthly payment order (MPO).
In October last, the education ministry issued a gazette notification declaring enlistment of those institutions under MPO. However, since the issuance of notification, scrutiny of submitted papers of those educational institutions by Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE) is yet to be completed, said teachers of those schools.
Concerned sources said DSHE is expected to complete the scrutiny by next week. Then the file would be sent to the education ministry. It was PM Sheikh Hasina's directive that the MPO-listed teachers and staff of those institutions would be given financial benefits from July, 2018. But the employees thought that it may take another 4 to 5 months as the work is going on at very slow pace.
They also feared that in this fiscal year, they won't be given financial benefits under MPO. In this case, the allocation for MPO will go back to the state treasury and more than 15,000 teachers and staff will be deprived of this facilities.
About three and a half months ago, it was announced that 2,737 educational institutions would be enlisted to the MPO and the Gazette was also published. A new scrutiny begins if someone applies for the MPOs providing fabricated information. As a result, the revised Gazette has to be published soon.
On the other hand, after the completion of MPO enlistment of the institutions, the work of teachers' enrolment will begin. It needs several months to complete all the process. Thus, the uncertainty remains regarding the teachers' enlistment to the MPO before June.
Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mominur Rashid Amin, who is assigned for the MPO enrollment, said that already they have one year's allocation for the new MPO-listed teachers and the teachers will receive their salaries from July last. This money should be disbursed among the teachers before the next revised budget.
"We are planning to publish the revised gazette of the enrolled MPO institutions by March and we are targeting that goal, the additional secretary said adding that if it takes more time for the teachers’ enrollment to the MPO at normal process, the alternative will be thought”.
The DG of DSHE Dr Syed Md Golam Faruk informed that the scrutiny of the institutions is almost completed. “By next week, we can send the list to the ministry,” said Faruk.
Officials concerned informed that the papers of the MPO-enlisted teachers are scrutinized in four steps. As per the rules, MPO-related papers of every teachers have to be uploaded online by the head of the institution then Upazila Secondary Education Officer scrutinized those papers and send it to the District Secondary Education Officer.
If the district officer expresses satisfaction with the papers, he sends it to the Regional Deputy Director. After justification, the Regional Deputy Director will send it to MPO-related Central Committee for final approval. The applicants face harassment complaining that the files not to be settled without paying bribe in those four steps. Even, it needs more than six months to complete these steps, they said demanding the traditional system.
According to the information, in the existing process, every institutions will get a code that is created under central meeting of the MPO committee in every odd month. In this respect, next March and May are odd months. If the final gazette of the MPO-listed institutions can be published soon, it is possible that the institutions will get the code in March, in which code the salary of the teachers and staff will be paid.
About 1,626 institutions were included to the MPO simultaneously in 2010. Due to these new MPOs, the total cost of Tk 881-cr has increased in two departments of the Ministry of Education.
