Teachers and employees of the MPO-enlisted schools and colleges on hunger strike are not going to take any classes today.

Besarkari Shikkha Jatiyakaran Liaison Forum, a platform of six organisations of teachers and employees leading the movement, took the decision on Friday as they did not get response to their demand from the prime minister.

They would also refrain from taking part in any official activities in their respective institutions, said Abdul Khalek, convener of the  forum.

“It is a symbolic boycott for a day. We do not want to cause disruption in the classes. We expect to recover the classes in the upcoming days,” he added.

With the demand of nationalisation of their institutions, their strike waged into the sixth day yesterday with at least 85 of them falling sick and at least 25 being hospitalised.

Several hundred teachers began the indefinite hunger strike at Jatiya Press Club on January 15 to press home their demand. Earlier, they staged a sit-in for five days since January 10.

According to the forum, there are 39,092 private secondary and higher secondary institutions with 506,637 teachers.