Published : 15 Aug 2026, 11:21 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:33 AM
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has assured teachers, whom he called society's “torchbearers”, that they will no longer need to shuttle between offices to claim their retirement benefits.
He pledged that teachers would face no more hassle or middlemen, with their dues reaching bank accounts online and on time going forward.
"As long as your elected government remains in office, you won't have to run from office to office for your retirement dues,” he said at Saturday's launch of retirement and welfare fund disbursements for private-sector teachers and staff at Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka.
The government has allocated Tk 20.36 billion as a one-time payment to clear a backlog stretching back four years, with funds being disbursed simultaneously to teachers' bank accounts across all 64 districts.
Some 70,119 retired teachers from private schools, colleges and madrasas will receive a portion of their accumulated savings, held in two government funds that have gone unpaid since 2022: the Non-Government Teachers' and Staff Welfare Trust and the Retirement Benefit Board.
Paying tribute to former prime minister Khaleda Zia, Tarique said she had established the welfare trust in 1991 and the retirement board in 2002, initially allocating Tk 140 million before building the fund to Tk 890 million.
He credited her with championing girls' education and introducing stipends and free schooling for female students, calling her approach a model followed internationally.
Tarique said both funds had been left near-bankrupt through fake indexing, diversion of funds to weak banks and the destruction of technical infrastructure under the previous "fascist" administration, leaving retired teachers unpaid since 2022 and forcing many to pay bribes just to access their own savings.
With insufficient funds remaining in both accounts, he said, the government had to arrange special measures to disburse the payments to the more than 70,000 affected teachers.
