An investigative report published by the outlets Shirshokagoj and Shirshonews alleges that transfers and postings across the country’s secondary and higher education administration are being traded for bribes at set rates, and that the trade is led from the education building on Abdul Gani Road in the capital.
The report names the director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Dr Khan Moinuddin Al Mahmud Sohel — the most senior serving officer of the education cadre — as leading the network. It attributes the claim to unnamed sources connected with the directorate. It alleges that teachers and staff at various levels, as well as political workers from outside, are engaged in collecting the money, and that in many cases it changes hands through the bank accounts of intermediaries.
BD Global Times has not independently verified these allegations. They are reproduced here as the claims of the originating report and its unnamed sources. No case has been filed and no charge has been framed. The report does not carry a response from the director general. A bank account number published in the original report has been withheld, and the names of junior staff and private individuals accused in it are not repeated here.
According to the report, the officer previously served as assistant private secretary to the state minister for education, A N M Ehsanul Haque Milon, during an earlier BNP government, and later held the post of director (secondary) at the directorate under the interim government. It alleges the nationwide network was built up during that period and expanded after he took the post of director general.
The report says discipline in the education sector has broken down, with junior officers being posted over the heads of seniors, and that officers previously identified with the ousted government are receiving preference for important posts.
It sets out a specific complaint. An education inspector at the Directorate of Inspection and Audit, Md Saifur Rahman Sumon, had been transferred elsewhere by an order issued from the education ministry. The report alleges that the officer, then serving as the education minister’s private secretary, took 20 lakh taka on a promise to have the transfer order cancelled, through an intermediary. Because another officer had already been posted to the position in exchange for a larger sum, it says, the transfer order could not be cancelled, and the 20 lakh taka was not returned. A Jubo Dal leader from Magura is said to have taken the matter up on the inspector’s behalf and, failing to resolve it, to have complained to a senior ministry official, who informed the prime minister’s office.
The report also describes the circumstances of the appointment. It says the education secretary at the time approved a file for the contractual appointment of a retired former director (training), Mohammad Abdus Sabur, as director general, on the recommendation of the BNP secretary general and minister for local government and rural development, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir. When the file reached the minister’s office, it says, the minister rejected the proposal and directed that a fresh file be submitted proposing his private secretary for the post in current charge. The file was sent to the prime minister’s office on 14 April, a public holiday, but the prime minister returned it without approval. The report says the minister then issued an office order on 16 April appointing the same officer as director general in additional charge, and that he was given the post in current charge on 23 April.
The report alleges an unofficial rate card for transfers: 5 to 10 lakh taka for a head teacher’s post in Dhaka depending on the school; 5 to 10 lakh for a district education officer depending on the district; 20 to 30 lakh for a deputy director; 2 to 3 lakh for an assistant teacher in Dhaka and 1 to 2 lakh outside Dhaka. For college posts it alleges one and a half to two crore taka for the chairman of a department under the ministry, two crore or more at director-general level, one crore for a director-level post, 30 to 50 lakh for the principal of a large government college and 30 to 40 lakh for a regional director, with other education cadre posts set between 2 lakh and 30 lakh depending on importance. It claims intermediaries take a further sum of roughly the same size.
It further alleges that teachers identified as associates of the previous government, who had been transferred as a disciplinary measure in the public interest, have since been returned to their former posts, in some cases to positions where no vacancy exists in their subject. It cites postings at schools in Mymensingh and Tangail as examples.
The report says a former teachers’ association leader, who says he was himself part of the network, told its reporters that money for transfers was deposited from various parts of the country into bank accounts opened in the names of members of the network, and that the posting order would be issued once the money arrived. He said accounts of this kind were not used for long. He also said he had sent a list of 13 teachers for posting, of whom eight were transferred while five were not, and that money taken in advance for the remainder was not returned.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report