For two months, Tazul Islam has gone to work each day knowing there will be no salary waiting at the end of the month.

The Bangla teacher at an MPO-listed madrasa in Savar returned home for Eid-ul-Adha in late May with empty hands. He bought no gifts for his nephew and niece, no new clothes for his family and could not contribute to the holiday expenses. 

His elder brother, frustrated after years of watching him struggle, asked why he remained in a profession that could no longer provide a living.

"Everyone gets paid. You don't. Why are you still doing this job?" his brother said before asking him to leave the house.

Tazul left quietly. He borrowed 500 taka from a friend for the journey back to Dhaka. Another friend later brought him rice and bananas because there was nothing to eat at home.

"I felt like an incapable person," he said.

His story is being repeated across Bangladesh's network of government-supported madrasas, where nearly 191,000 teachers and employees have now gone two consecutive months without salaries. 

It began as a delay in May, just before Eid-ul-Adha, but has stretched through June, forcing many teachers to borrow from relatives, buy groceries on credit and postpone rent payments while waiting for wages that have yet to arrive.

According to the Directorate of Madrasa Education, about 511 crore taka is required to pay the monthly salaries of MPO-listed madrasa teachers and staff. The available fund contains only 86 crore taka, leaving a deficit large enough to halt payments nationwide.

Officials attribute the shortfall to the expansion of the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) system. Around 17,000 additional teachers were brought under government salary support while annual increments, festival bonuses, house rent and other allowances also increased. 

The budget, however, did not keep pace.

Dr K M Shafiqul Islam, deputy director for finance at the Directorate of Madrasa Education, told Daily Waadaa that they had warned the Finance Ministry months before the crisis unfolded.

"Since November, we have repeatedly sent letters," he said, adding that no additional allocation was approved.

Education Minister Ehsanul Haque Milon has said the government plans to clear both May and June salaries together in July.

For teachers already living on borrowed money, that assurance has done little to ease immediate concerns.

"Fine, pay us two months' salaries together in July," said one madrasa teacher, who asked to be identified only as Hossain. "But what about now? How are we supposed to survive until then?"

In Kaliakair, another MPO-listed madrasa teacher, Abu Abdullah, borrowed 50,000 taka from his elder brother and has been purchasing food on credit from neighbourhood shops.

"Our lives have come to a stop," he said. "There is no dignity left."

He supports a household of seven people, including elderly parents who require regular medication. The missed salaries transformed what is usually the year's most important family celebration into a period of anxiety.

"It is beyond words," he said. "You cannot imagine how I am managing."

For many teachers, the financial strain has become inseparable from a deeper sense of social decline.

Tazul earned both his honours and master's degrees in Bangla from Jahangirnagar University. He remembers helping a university friend secure a garment factory job that paid just 3,500 taka a month. 

Years later, that friend has risen to become a general manager, earning around 250,000 taka a month and owning both a house and a car.

Tazul remains unable to marry.

"Whenever I go with a marriage proposal and they hear that I'm a teacher, they say, 'That's not a real job,'" he said.

The salary delay, he said, has reinforced a feeling that the profession itself has lost its standing.

"If someone from the next generation wants to become a teacher," he said, "I'll tell them: repair shoes, do manual labour if you have to—but don't become a teacher."

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