Raising entry age for government jobs is reasonable, says Muyeed Chowdhury

In consideration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and session jams in the universities, raising the entry age for government jobs seems ‘reasonable’, says Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, head of the Public Administration Reform Committee.

Muyeed has also been appointed as convener of the committee on recommendations on whether to raise the age limit for applicants for public sector jobs.

The committee will recommend raising the age limit in the next seven working days, he said, speaking to the media after meeting the student protesters on Wednesday.

“This committee has a single focus - to review the entry age for government jobs. There have been protests for a long time over the issue. We met with the protesters. We’ll consider the government’s current policies, future strategies and overall situation and design a recommendation. Raising the age limit is reasonable. There is no doubt about that,” he said.

“People faced several difficulties, including COVID, session jams and other issues. The entry age should be raised now,” he said when asked about the reason for raising the age limit.

Rasel Al Mahmud, a representative of the protesters, said they had a ‘fruitful discussion,’ with the review committee.

“They have listened to us attentively. We’ll wait for their decision by next week.”

Currently, the maximum age for entering government jobs is 30 years. For the last few years, students and job seekers have been staging protests to raise the age bar to 35. However, the Awami League government scrapped the demand multiple times.

The Awami League government fell on Aug 5 in the face of a mass movement. The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus took charge on Aug 8. The changeover in government spurred a fresh round of protests from different groups who had their demands unfulfilled during the previous administration. The age limit protesters are among them.

On Monday, they gathered outside the residence of Chief Advisor Yunus and were blocked by police. Later the government formed the ‘high profile’ review committee to consider raising the entry age limit for government jobs.