Dhaka Bureau: Government is going to set up a Directorate called Primary Education Training by merging Upazila Resource Center (URC), Primary Teacher Training Institute (PTI) and National Primary Education Academy (NEP). As a result, these three traditional teacher training institutes of primary education in the country will disappear. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education took this decision on December 29 last year. Then on January 4, the Ministry sent a letter to the Director General of the National Primary Education Academy (NEP) and sought his opinion for the creation of the Directorate. Such news has created unrest in primary education training institutions. Related sources have given this information.
Those concerned said that the experts do not look favorably on the creation of a new department by suddenly abolishing the three training institutes of primary education. According to them, this new department is being formed to rehabilitate the bureaucrats by making the primary education officials ‘Thuto Jagannath’. This will further increase the differences between the officials of the Directorate of Primary Education and the officials of the Directorate of Training. They are not willing to say anything publicly about it. They keep the whole thing under surveillance. Besides, they have also raised questions about the necessity of forming such luxury department at the time of crisis.
If asked, State Minister of Primary and Mass Education. Zakir Hossain told the media, I know the whole matter. This is a detailed discussion. Tell my public relations officer, he will raise the document with me (Minister) in this regard. Then I will explain the whole thing to you.
Rasheda K Chowdhury, former caretaker government advisor and chief executive of the People’s Signature Campaign, said, “It is not sensible to create a new department without strengthening the existing training institutes.”
Professor SM Hafizur Rahman of the Institute of Education and Research of Dhaka University gave good comments to the newly created directorate for training and said that currently there are three types of instructions from three training institutes. Again the Directorate of Primary Education gives separate instructions for training. It often causes confusion. Now it has to be seen whether such different instructions go from the new Directorate for Training. If there are different instructions then I would say, they should be dropped. And if the training department informs everything about the training of teachers in one instruction, then I will say that this initiative of the government is right.
It has been found that the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education sent a letter to the Director General of the National Primary Education Academy (NEP) on January 4. It is said, ‘In the monthly coordination meeting of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education held on December 29, it was decided to create a Primary Education Training Institute by merging Upazila Resource Center (URC), Primary Teacher Training Institute (PTI) and National Primary Education Academy (NEP). In such a situation, the complete proposal for the creation of Directorate of Primary Education and Training by combining URC, PTI and NEP should be sent within the next 10 working days.
If you want to know, Director General of Nep. Shah Alam declined to comment. However, the superintendent of Dhaka PTI. Kamruzzaman told Bhor paper that it is not possible to say why the authorities want to do this. However, they have two thoughts about the formation of the training department. One of them is that it will not be bad if the ranks are increased as a result of merging the three existing training institutes. On the other hand, creating a new department and placing bureaucrats at its head will give a different dimension to the matter. Therefore, the details cannot be explained until a few more days have passed.
Those concerned said that currently primary teachers at the upazila level are trained from URC. PTI at district headquarter provides DPinEd training to newly recruited teachers. And all the training is taken care of by NEP located in Mymensingh. The Department of Primary Education also provides training in specific areas. According to the new law, what will happen to the existing officers if the department is created under the name of primary education training? What about training teachers at the upazila level? No official of the ministry wants to give an answer to these yet. They are completely avoiding this.
A senior official on condition of anonymity said, Aminul Islam Khan, the former secretary of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, is the father of this theory. He was the one who finalized the matter of creating a Directorate in the name of Training by merging the existing three teacher training institutes. The current administration of the ministry is proceeding with the work of forming a new department in the way shown by him. An officer of the administration cadre of the rank of Additional Secretary will be the Director General of the new Directorate. Another officer of the same rank will be Additional Director General. Officers of the rank of Joint-Secretary will be promoted to the post of Director. At present, the outline of where and how the employees of NEP, PTI and Resource Center will be attached to the Training Directorate is yet to be finalised.
He said that bureaucrats are currently being promoted to director general and director positions in NEP. There are bureaucrats in the Directorate of Primary Education. Bureaucrats will be posted in the newly formed Directorate of Training. He said that a building has also been constructed in Mirpur of the capital for the training department.
PTI stakeholders said that there is no alternative to modern education for the overall development of the country and nation. And its main base is primary education and primary school teachers. PTI is an efficient institution for producing teachers. They said that out of 64 districts of the country, 12 districts did not have PTI earlier. The current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009 and constructed new PTI buildings in all the districts of the country including 12 districts. Besides, all training institutes have been enriched by providing training materials. Now PTI Superintendent of several districts of the country has demanded to analyze how much benefit will be brought by abolishing them and forming new training directorate in this shortage market.
