Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday regretted his comment on the agitating teachers of public universities.

"The way my comment was published in the media is undesirable and I'm withdrawing it. I humbly request those who have been aggrieved or hurt by the comment to end all the misunderstanding here," Muhith said at a function in Sylhet.

"I wanted to say they started a movement when they were not aware of the actual recommendations and the overall government decisions that were to be taken in this regard," the minister explained.

On Tuesday, replying to a query about the teachers' movement, Muhith said, "I am extremely surprised that the most educated section [of our population] has gone for such a movement due to their lack of knowledge."

"I should have said their movement resulted from their being uninformed," he clarified yesterday. "The way I spoke must have hurt them as there is a huge gulf between 'lack of knowledge' and 'being uninformed'."

"I am very sorry about my comment. However, I am surprised that they [university teachers] went for a movement before knowing the government's decisions," he said.

University teachers held several demonstrations at different universities in the week before the new scale was approved on Monday. They have intensified the agitation programme since Tuesday.

Muhith also said yesterday that the pay commission formed by the government had teachers' representation as well.

He said the new structure has 20 scales and professors, like in the past, are given the same status as secretaries who under grade 1 get a monthly salary of Tk 78,000.

The minister said out of 11,202 teachers in 36 universities there are 2,952 professors, 1,994 associate professors, 3,391 assistant professors and 2,865 lecturers.

He said the pyramid usually applicable to other professions does not apply to university teachers and the number of university teachers is higher in the upper ranks than in the lower ones.

About the issue of a separate pay structure for teachers, Muhith said a universal pay scale was declared in the face of teachers' movement in 1973. Since then the teachers have received salaries and allowances under a unified pay scale.

TEACHERS THANK MUHITH, ANNOUNCE NEW PROGRAMMES

Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers' Association (FBUTA) yesterday thanked the finance minister for retracting his comment on its ongoing agitation programmes within the 24-hour deadline.

In a statement issued yesterday evening, the FBUTA also criticised the minister for "making a negative comment" about their demand for an independent pay scale.

The statement was jointly signed by FBUTA President Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed and member secretary Prof ASM Maksud Kamal.

Earlier in the day, FBUTA announced that teachers of all 37 public universities in the country will observe daylong stoppages on September 13 and 17, demanding a separate pay scale for them.

The decision came at an FBUTA meeting at the provost's office of Surya Sen Hall on Dhaka University campus around 11:30am yesterday.

However, the meeting decided that exams would remain beyond the purview of the protest programmes.

Meanwhile, teachers of Jahangirnagar University, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University and Bangladesh Agriculture University in Mymensingh observed stoppages yesterday to drive home the demand for a separate pay scale.