Highlights:

• The MPO teachers’ sit-in currently appears to be holding at Shahbagh intersection.
• Government approves 5% of basic salary as house rent allowance, citing budgetary constraints.
• Work abstention continues; classes remain suspended.
• Hunger march on hold for 3pm meeting with BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
• Core demand is the gazette issuance for 20% house rent, Tk1,500 medical allowance, and 75% festival bonus.
• Teachers are protesting the continued failure to implement benefits.
• The protest will continue until MPO institutions’ nationalisation is achieved and all demands are met.
• Teachers label the current Tk1,500 house rent as “mockery” & an act of discrimination.

MPO-listed teachers and employees have rejected the government’s official notification granting them 5% of their basic salary in house rent allowance, declaring the move insufficient and vowing to continue their eight-day-long agitation until their full demands are met.

The Ministry of Finance today (19 October) approved a house rent allowance set at 5% of the basic salary or a minimum of Tk2,000 for teachers who have been protesting, a decision the government said was made “considering the existing budgetary limitations”.

However, Delwar Hossain Azizi, member secretary of the Alliance for Nationalisation of MPO Institutions, dismissed the notification as only a partial victory.

“The 5% house rent notification is merely an initial victory of our movement,” Azizi stated. “But all our programmes will continue until the government issues notifications for a 20% house rent allowance, Tk1,500 medical allowance, and a 75% festival allowance for employees.”

The teachers’ protests, which began with a continuous sit-in on 12 October and included a black flag march yesterday (18 October), where protestors also demanded the resignation of Education Adviser CR Abrar, chanting “CR Abrar, no longer needed”.

Meanwhile, a planned “hunger march” by the teachers, originally scheduled for 12:00pm today, has been postponed to 3:00pm. The delay is due to a scheduled meeting between the protesting teachers and BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

The MPO-listed teachers and employees have been protesting on the streets of Dhaka, asserting they will not return to their workplaces until their demands are met.