Bangladesh: Under Pressure From Islamists, Yunus Govt Scraps Plan To Hire Music And Physical Education Teachers

The interim government of Bangladesh, led by Muhammad Yunus, has bowed to pressure from hardline Islamic groups and withdrawn its decision to appoint music and physical education teachers in government-run primary schools, the India Today reported.

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Primary and Mass Education on Monday (3 November) confirmed that the new rules no longer include posts for music and physical education teachers.

“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,” said ministry official Masud Akhtar Khan.

When asked if the change followed Islamist pressure, Khan said, “You can check for yourself.”

The move comes after months of opposition from Islamist organisations, which called the plan an “anti-Islamic agenda”.

At a September rally organised by the Jatiya Olama Mashayekh Aima Parishad, attended by leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Andolon Bangladesh, Khelafat Majlish, and others, clerics claimed the initiative was “connected to an atheistic philosophy aimed at making the future generation faithless and destroying schoolchildren.”

Islami Andolon chief Syed Rezaul Karim said, “When we took religious studies as children, there were separate teachers for Hindus and Muslims. But now, you want to appoint music teachers? What will they teach? What are your intentions? You want to make our children disrespectful, unruly, and characterless? We will never tolerate that.”

Hefazat-e-Islam, another radical Deobandi group, denounced the plan as “anti-Islamic” and demanded its withdrawal.

This reversal marks yet another policy capitulation by the Yunus administration, which has increasingly yielded to Islamist demands since taking power, signalling a setback for secular education in Bangladesh.

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