Primary school teachers demand two 15-day holiday blocks

Government primary school teachers across the country have demanded that two separate blocks of consecutive 15-day holidays be included in the annual academic calendar, warning that failure to do so could create legal and administrative complications in receiving fatigue and recreation allowance.

The demand was formally placed on Sunday, January 4, when the twelve-organisation alliance Prathomik Shiksha Sangathan Oikya Parishad submitted an application to the Secretary of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education.

In the application, the teachers' organisations said existing rules make an uninterrupted 15-day holiday a mandatory condition for entitlement to fatigue and recreation allowance. Although a long holiday exists during Ramadan, teachers are unable to receive the allowance regularly every three years due to the absence of another continuous 15-day break during the rest of the year. They noted that as Ramadan shifts forward by around ten days each year, the three-year cycle for qualifying for the allowance is often not completed on time, forcing many teachers to wait until the fourth year to become eligible.

The teachers argued that scheduling two consecutive 15-day holidays in a year would allow all teachers to receive the allowance every three to three-and-a-half years in line with the rules. The application was signed by Anisur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Primary Assistant Teachers' Association, on behalf of the alliance.

The application also flagged inconsistencies in the recently published 2026 primary school holiday list issued by the Department of Primary Education. While welcoming updates to the list, the teachers said several revisions are necessary to ensure uniform calculation of holidays. They pointed out that in previous years, Fridays and Saturdays falling within holiday periods were counted as zero days, but in the 2026 list they have been counted as holidays in some instances, distorting the overall tally.

Specifically, Fridays and Saturdays have been included as holidays from March 8 to March 26 under the eighth serial and from December 20 to December 29 under the twenty-eighth serial. According to the teachers, this has disrupted the calculation of consecutive holiday days.