DHAKA — Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairman Tarique Rahman has backed teachers’ ongoing protests and warned that any attempt to exploit the movement to create unrest would be resisted, the party said Saturday.
Rahman said the BNP is in principle in agreement with the teachers’ just demands, according to a press statement signed by joint office secretary lawyer Md. Taifur Islam Tipu. But efforts to capitalize on the movement to create disorder would be stopped, he said.
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir conveyed Rahman’s remarks. As a responsible political party, the BNP stands in principle with the teachers’ just demands, the statement said. The party’s commitment to teachers is straightforward: job security based on the spirit of the Liberation War, the highest social dignity for teachers and state recognition of their contributions.
The statement said the BNP believes no national or civic development effort can succeed without modernizing the education system and ensuring teachers’ economic and social security and dignity.
If the BNP wins the people’s vote and returns to government, it will positively consider raising teachers’ financial security, making their jobs permanent and phasing in the nationalization of all educational institutions, as state finances allow, the party said.
But the BNP will show no leniency toward any effort to use the cover of a teachers’ movement to build a self-serving structure aligned with authoritarianism or to obstruct a smooth democratic transition, the statement said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report