Five hundred and sixty government run primary schools in the six districts of the division, particularly in the rural and remote areas, has been operating without a headmaster for a while now.
In line with the state, 445 assistant headmasters posts have also been vacant athough the city or town schools have no crisis of teachers.
Sources at Barisal divisional primary education office said there are 3,305 government primary schools. Of them, they in August identified 560 headmaster and 445 assistant headmaster posts there were vacant.
The district-wise scenario of vacant post is 284 in Barisal, 183 in Patuakhali, 164 in Bhola, 107 in Barguna, 116 in Jhalakathi, and 151 in Pirojpur.
It was learnt that Badiullah Government Primary School in Tungibaria union of Sadar upazila has a scarcity of three teachers, including the headmaster while the remaining ones were struggling to deal with the 400 students.
On the other hand, only three teachers instead of the eight needed have been tackling 450 students of Chandramohon Government Primary School as senior teachers are reluctant to go there owing to it being situated in a river-isolated area.
Abul Kalam Azad, headmaster of Islamia Government Primary School situated Girjamahalla area of the city centre, they have one surplus teacher who was brought on deputation as they were having trouble dealing with the 350 students with eight teachers. The same situation was seen at Kashipur Government school in the city as well.
Barisal Divisional Primary Education Officer Mahbub Elahi acknowledged the disruption of academics in the primary schools because of the vacant posts, saying the administrative tasks of those schools have been greatly hampered.
However, the officer could not offer any quick remedy or steps to solve the problem.