Under pressure from religious groups, Bangladesh drops music, physical education teacher posts

A number of political parties and Islamist social organisations have opposed the appointments, with some calling for a religious studies teacher instead

The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has decided to scrap the newly created posts for music teachers in government primary schools, following criticism from several religious organisations.

At the same time, the ministry has also cancelled the new position of physical education teacher.

In addition to dropping the two posts, the government has made certain “wording changes” to the Government Primary School Teacher Recruitment Rules-2025. The ministry has amended the rules issued in August to reflect these revisions.

Masud Akhtar Khan, additional secretary of the schools division at the ministry, told bdnews24.com on Monday afternoon that a gazette amending the rules was issued on Sunday.

“Although the rules issued last August had four categories of posts, two categories have been included in the amendment. The posts of assistant teachers for music and physical education are not in the new rules,” he said.

When asked whether the decision was made in response to criticism from religious groups, the additional secretary declined to comment.

“You can check it out,” he said.

He added that the amendment also corrected a phrasing error in the earlier version of the rules.

“In the previous rules, it was mentioned that 20 percent of the posts recruited on the basis of merit would be filled by those with a bachelor’s degree in science and the remaining 80 percent by those with a bachelor’s degree in other subjects,” Masud said.

“We made a wording mistake there — it seemed that 80 percent of the posts would be filled by those with degrees in subjects other than science. But in fact, those 80 percent of the posts without quota were common — meaning candidates with degrees in science or other subjects could fill them. Therefore, the phrase ‘in other subjects’ has been replaced with ‘in science and other subjects,’” he said.

The notification for the new recruitment rules was first issued on Aug 28.

It introduced two new assistant teacher positions — one for music and another for physical education.

Soon after, religious organisations began to voice strong criticism of the move, particularly against the creation of the music teacher post.

On Sept 16, Islami Andolan Bangladesh chief Ameer Syed Mohammad Rezaul Karim condemned the decision and called for the appointment of religious teachers in primary schools instead.

That same day, leaders from Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Andolan Bangladesh, Khelafat Majlis, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis, and Bangladesh Khelafat Andolon also criticised the creation of the music teacher post during a seminar.

Earlier, on Sept 6, Hifazat-e Islam denounced the government’s move as an “anti-Islamic agenda” and demanded the cancellation of the recruitment rules.