Teachers in our traditional setting do everything for the betterment of their pupils. Many of their students, because of the teachers’ hard work and guidance, make it to the top positions of different state organs. Unfortunately, once the students become higher officials, they get oblivious of sufferings of their teachers. If not so, then why thousands of retired teachers have to make rounds to the pension board just to get what is rightfully theirs (pension and retirement benefits)?

We are shocked to see the news published in a Bangla daily that paints a sorry picture of the afflictions of the retired teachers. Around 35 thousand teachers and employees of the non-government educational institutions have applied for their retirement benefits. Many of them have been waiting for three to five years to get the benefits. Every day many retired teachers throng the premises of the Non-Government Teacher Employee Retirement Benefit Board, but to no avail.

This is really unfortunate that teachers have to wait for a long time to get their due benefits, which force them to lead a miserable life as they are left with no income source for survival. Whereas life after retirement is supposed to be comfortable and stress-free, these teachers are facing the hard realities of life at the end of their lives. The scenario is, more or less, the same for the retired teachers of government educational institutions as well.

This cannot go on this way. The High Court, while delivering a verdict in February, directed the government to clear retirement benefits of the teachers and employees of non-government educational institutions within six months of their retirement. The government must take necessary steps to adhere to this directive. In the first place, the government should direct the finance ministry to do the needful to allocate enough to fill in the deficit (of at least 420 crore taka) which is being created annually while paying the retirement benefits.

Moreover, the government needs to understand that this dilly-dallying approach is partly to blame for declining popularity of other financial schemes. For example – the response to the much-hyped universal pension scheme has not been too encouraging. We urge the concerned authorities to do whatever it takes to streamline the processes to make sure that teachers do not have to endure any more suffering.