The government has decided to appoint nearly 14,000 new teachers for primary schools this year, according to Farid Ahmed, secretary at the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

Continuing from the previous year, the secretary highlighted plans to continue recruitment of teachers at the primary level. Ahmed said that over 37,000 teachers had been appointed to primary schools in 2023 and 13,781 will be appointed this year.

The secretary made the statements during a press conference at the Secretariat on Thursday.

He also highlighted issues such as printing books through the Directorate of Primary Education and taking necessary steps to prevent fraud and irregularities in recruitment exams. He spoke of the ‘Surokkha’ device developed by BUET to prevent the use of digital devices during such tests. He also outlined the ministry’s plans to build new public primary schools in Dhaka and improve infrastructure at existing schools.

The highest number of teachers appointed at once was 51,355 after independence, Ahmed said. The ministry will continue its recruitment programme and meet the SDG teacher-student ratio of 1:30 ahead of 2030, he added.

The secretary noted that the Directorate of Primary Education’s initiative to print books for primary schools themselves could have up to Tk 300-350 million a year.