All the 52 primary schools, 20 high schools and five madrasas in Natore have been run by acting headmasters for at least two years. This has led to a stagnant administration where teachers do not feel accountable and follow the guidance of the headmasters. Such informal approach has resulted in a poor performance of the educational institutions.
Appointment of headmasters in primary schools has long been suspended following a case filed by the assistant teachers. In the high schools and the madrasas, tenure of almost all the managing committees have expired. For the lack of an elected body, the institutions are run by acting headmasters. Some schools’ managing committees also run their institutions because of personal clash with the acting head.
District primary education officer Nafiza Begum said the assistant primary teachers had lodged the case with the High Court seeking direction to select a head from them. Recently, the court declared in its verdict that 65% posts for headmasters would be filled up promoting the assistant teachers while the government can appoint the rest of 35% by publishing notice.
Maksedul Islam, secondary education officer of Natore district and sadar upazila secondary education officer Shah Alam said there were 20 acting headmasters and five acting superintendents in the district. Out of them seven acting headmasters and two acting superintendents are posted in Baraigram upazila, one acting headmaster and one acting superintendent in Lalpur upazila, five acting headmasters in Gurudaspur upazila, three acting headmasters in sadar upazila, three acting headmasters and one acting super in Bagatipara upazila and one acting headmaster and one acting super are in Singra upazila of the district.
Karim Ali, guardian of a female student of Tegachhi Primary School of Dighapatia union of sadar upazila expressed concern that due to the lack of headmasters and a coordination among assistant teachers, PSC result of his daughter might not be satisfactory. The school could not complete all the books even after the middle of November.
When contacted, Rafiqul Islam, assistant teacher of the primary school acknowledged the problems and said they were facing a lot of troubles to complete the syllabus for the up coming PSC and school’s final examinations. Almost all the teachers did not want to follow the directions of the acting headmasters.
The concerned guardians and teachers urged the government to fill all the acting heads’ post soon.
“We have already received the direction by the primary education department to select the credible senior assistant teachers to fill the post. So far we have received nominations from seven primary schools of the sadar upazila. After receiving all the names, we will send it to Dhaka for government approval. We hope to declare the names soon,” said the primary education officer Nafiza Begum.
About the acting head of the high school and madrasas, district’s secondary education officer Maksedul said term of almost all the institutions’ managing committees had expired. The conveners of the committees could not appoint any headmaster in any institutions making way for some committee members to serve as the acting headmaster.
Acting headmaster of Nagar High School Ashraf Ali said the managing committee had promoted one assistant teacher in 2009 after suspending the then headmaster Bipen Bihari Sarker. However, a new managing committee has been formed recently and may fill up post soon, he added.
“We have already directed the institutions to form the managing committee soon and deploy headmaster instead of the acting post for the betterment of their schools.”
