A SERIOUS shortage of teachers in government technical and vocational educational institutions is unacceptable. It shows the government鈥檚 lack of commitment to a sector that has a high potential to contribute to the economy. About three-fourths of the sanctioned positions for teachers in government technical and vocational educational institutions have been vacant. According to the Bangladesh Technical Education Board and the Directorate of Technical Education, of the total of 15,360 sanctioned positions 鈥� 1,679 for cadre and 13,681 for non-cadre 鈥� in more than 200 such institutions, there are teachers in only 3,916 positions, suggesting that 74.5 per cent sanctioned positions are vacant. Such a severe shortage of teachers has left the institutions almost unable to properly teach thousands of students enrolled in the institutions. While there was a shortage of teachers and instructors in the government institutions, the crisis intensified after the government abruptly doubled the number of seats in the institutions in 2016 to increase student enrolment, without attending to the issue of teacher shortage. The then government took up a plan to increase student enrolment in technical and vocational education to 25 per cent by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030 but did not recruit enough teachers to match the increase in the number of students.
The teacher crisis has, meanwhile, held back the authorities from effectively implementing the curriculum and produceing skilled workforce that the sector is expected to do. The director general of the Directorate of Technical Education says that the problem has intensified as new positions were created and new institutions were founded without any recruitment and the government would appoint 3,200 junior instructors soon. The probable appointment, assuring though, is still not enough. The teacher shortage in such institutions is also blamed on the poor salary structure. Most efficient candidates prefer private technical and vocational institutions or like to work in private firms at home or abroad because of a higher pay. There is, moreover, a shortage of technical teacher training facilities and programmes. All this suggests the government鈥檚 lack of commitment to a stream of education that the government continues to praise, and rightly so, as a stream that produces a skilled workforce that has high demand at home and abroad. The situation also leaves Bangladesh unable to adequately exploit job markets abroad, where the demand for technical and vocational graduates is very high. Only 8 per cent of the workers that Bangladesh sent abroad were skilled or semi-skilled, as the International Organisation for Migration says. Sending unskilled workers abroad does not bring in much benefits as skilled workers and professionals are likely to be employed in better jobs.
The authorities should, therefore, immediately take measures to appoint teachers against all sanctioned positions in government technical and vocational educational institutions and ensure regular training programmes for the teachers. The authorities should also consider higher pay for teachers to attract and retain skilled teaching staff.
