Primary education seems to have taken a backseat in the government schools in the Netrokona district as 380 government primary schools have been running without headmasters, disrupting the regular academic and office work.
Apart from this, 23 posts of assistant upazila education officers (AEOs) are also vacant in the district hampering the school management process, according to the data of the District Education Office, Netrokona.
The district has a total of 1,314 government primary schools in 10 upazilas. Among them, 1,312 schools have authorized posts of headmasters and two schools have not approved the post of headmaster yet. Currently, only 932 headmasters are working in sanctioned posts and the remaining 380 schools are being run by acting head teachers.
Around 2 lakh students, including 1,00,201 female students are currently studying in government primary schools in the district. To maintain all those students, only 7,623 people are working together as head teachers and assistant teachers.
Although approved posts of assistant teachers are 6,920, among them, 230 posts are vacant. Apart from that, there are 46 posts for assistant upazila education officers (AEOs) for school management. Among them, 23 AEOs are working and the remaining 23 posts have been vacant for the last two to five years.
According to sources of the District Education Office, 59 out of 172 posts of head teachers are vacant in Kalmakanda upazila, 28 out of 103 in Atpara, 46 out of 182 in Kendua, and 24 out of 126 in Durgapur. Besides, two out of four posts of Assistant Upazila Primary Education Officer in Atpara, three out of five in Kalmakanda, five out of seven in Kendua, three out of four in Durgapur, four out of seven in Sadar, three out of six in Purbadhala, one out of four in Barhatta and two out of four in Mohangonj are vacant for a long time.
Teachers in charge in at least 14 government primary schools in Kalmakanda, Atpara and Sadar upazilas, said that due to the lack of head teachers, they have to perform dual duties of assistant teacher and head teacher at the same time.
In addition, daily activities and running official work becomes difficult, they said.
Several parents, who were unwilling to be named, said that the schools are grappling with a leadership crisis as the posts of head teachers are vacant. Sometimes, incumbents can't even make the right decisions, they alleged.
Atpara Suni Government Primary School Acting Headmaster Abdul Ghaffar said that around 180 students are studying at his school but the school has only three teachers. Besides teaching, he has to handle everything including the office work which is quite difficult, he said.
In this regard District Primary Education Officer Mizanur Rahman said, the education office has been struggling due to manpower crisis for a long time.
“The matter has been informed to the higher authorities and the concerned department. The recruitment process is ongoing as the written exam for the assistant teacher recruitment has been completed. We are hoping that this crisis will be resolved shortly.”