Educational activities being hampered due to teacher shortage in hilly areas
Pinky Akhter, Rangamati
The education system in the hilly district of Rangamati is beset by crises and various problems. Teacher shortage, infrastructure shortage, housing shortage, manpower shortage in government schools, equipment and laboratory (lab) shortage, financial constraints of guardians, and student dropout rate are hampering education. Students are being deprived of quality education.
Despite repeated disappointments over the quality of education and examination results in this remote district, effective initiatives to address the education crisis seem to have remained out of reach.
The posts of Upazila Secondary Education Officers have been lying vacant for a long time in all 10 upazilas of the district. According to the manpower information of the district's Primary Upazila Education Office, 47 people are working out of 74 approved posts, of which 27 are vacant.
Due to facing such crises, Rangamati district lags behind in SSC and HSC results every year. The dropout rate of students is also increasing.
The average number of students at the secondary level in Rangamati district is 35,000. Out of 208 teacher posts in 11 government secondary schools in the district, 123 are working, out of which 85 are vacant. There are 166 private secondary schools in the district. Out of these, 585 are vacant teacher posts in 93 private secondary schools under MPO.
There are 707 primary schools in the district. There are 77,287 students in these schools. There are 589 vacant assistant teacher posts and 402 vacant head teacher posts. The number of vacant posts is constantly increasing.
Secondary Education Officer of the district, Sarit Kumar Chakma, said that currently, the posts of education officers are vacant in 10 upazilas of Rangamati.
District Education Officer, Sarit Kumar Chakma, said that currently, the teacher crisis in Rangamati has reached an extreme level. Due to the lack of rules for appointing upazila education officers, the upazila secondary education officers are not able to make new appointments.
In addition, the appointment of senior teachers is also fraught with various complications. He said that the results in the hilly district of Rangamati were disastrous due to 80% teacher vacancies.
