Teachers and employees working in educational institutions under the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme will also be covered under the 9th National Pay Scale. Like government employees, they will also receive salaries and allowances according to the new structure from Jul 1.

Jamila Shabnam, deputy secretary of the Implementation-1 Division of the Finance Division at the Ministry of Finance, said on Tuesday: “Teachers and employees under the MPO receive salaries and allowances according to the national pay scale. They are also under the 9th pay scale. That is all I can say at the moment.”

In July 2023, the government announced a special incentive of 5 percent or a minimum of Tk 1,000 in addition to an annual salary increase of 5 percent on the basic salaries of government employees, reports bdnews24.com.

At that time, the Implementation-1 Division of the Finance Division issued a separate order announcing this benefit for MPO-listed teachers and employees.

Deputy Secretary Jamila did not comment on whether a separate order will be issued declaring MPO-affiliated teachers and employees included in the 9th pay scale.

Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon wrote in a Facebook post at 4:30pm on Tuesday, “MPO-affiliated teachers will be paid according to the new salary structure.”

The government has decided to implement the 9th National Pay Scale for government employees in three phases due to fears of rising inflation. The gazette in this regard will be published this week.

Government employees are getting a new salary scale after 11 years. The 8th National Pay Scale was announced in 2015.

The new salary structure was approved in a Cabinet meeting on Monday. Afterwards, Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Gani presented detailed information about the salary increase at a press conference.

Asked whether MPO-affiliated teachers and employees would come under the new salary structure, he said, “I cannot say that now. A decision will be taken on this later.”

The remark led to confusion for many MPO-affiliated teachers and employees.

Teachers and employees of MPO-affiliated schools, colleges, madrasas and technical educational institutions are included in the national salary scale. In the explanation of the pay scale for teachers and employees in the MPO policy, it is noted that their salary structure is according to the National Pay Scale-2015 and further updates announced by the government.

Currently, the government provides financial assistance for the salaries and allowances of teachers and employees of private educational institutions, which is known as the MPO. These teachers and employees receive 100 percent of the basic salary according to the scale. Along with this, they receive some allowances, including medical allowance.

Last year, it was decided to that MPO-affiliated teachers and employees would also get a house rent allowance at 15 percent of the basic salary. Before that, teachers and employees under MPO used to get a monthly rent allowance of Tk 1,000.

Currently, more than 600,000 teachers and employees across the country are under the MPO. Of them, about 400,00 are under the Department of Secondary and Higher Education, 175,000 under the Department of Madrasah Education, and more than 23,000 teachers and employees are under the Department of Technical Education.

According to the new pay scale, the basic salary will increase by 100 to 142 percent according to grade. As before, there will be 20 grades in the new structure. Of these, the basic salary of the lowest grade – the 20th - will increase from Tk 8,250 to Tk 20,000. The salary of the highest first grade will increase from the fixed Tk 78,000 to Tk 156,000.

The new pay scale will be implemented in stages from Jul 1 of this year.

The basic salary will be implemented in three stages from Jul 1 of this year to 2027.

The allowance will be effective simultaneously from Jan 1, 2028.