Following assurance to meet some of their demands, government college teachers this afternoon called off their three-day work abstention.

The teachers, demanding removal of "discrepancies" in the eighth national pay scale, said they will not enforce any protest programme in February.

The strike withdrawal follows assurances from prime minister's Principal Secretary Abul Kalam Azad and Education Secretary Sohrab Hossain.

BCS General Education Association, a platform of teachers and officials belonging to the BCS general education cadre, decided to call off the strike at a meeting this afternoon, a member of the association told The Daily Star.

The education secretary assured the teachers of meeting some of their demands when the association's President Prof Nasrin Begum and General Secretary IK Selim Ullah Khondaker met him at the ministry this noon.

Teachers at all government colleges in the country began a three-day work abstention programme yesterday demanding removal of "discrepancies" in the eighth national pay scale.

They did not take classes at almost all 310 public colleges as per an earlier decision taken at a meeting on January 22.

The association in its general meeting had announced to observe the three-day work abstention programme.

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Earlier on January 4-5, the teachers boycotted academic activities at all colleges to press home their demands that include upgradation of the posts of professors and reinstatement of selection grade and timescale.

Selim Ullah said they would hold protest programmes in phases until February 23 and then go on an indefinite strike from that day if their demands were not met.

Professors of BCS general education cadre are grade-4 officers, but around 50 percent of them used to get grade-3 through selection grade. But now they would have to go on retirement from grade-4 as the government scrapped selected grade in the eighth pay scale, lowering their status.

There are around 15,000 teachers and officials under the education cadre. Of them, the number of professors is 634.

Like the public university teachers, teachers of the state-run colleges and officials of education cadre have been waging a movement since September last year. With yesterday's programme, they have stayed away from work for five times so far.

Things turned for worse after the government had issued a gazette on the pay scale on December 15. But it irked the teachers further as it did not mention about the selection grade and timescale.