Around 800 government senior secondary schools across the state are functioning without principals even as 780 headmasters and lecturers were promoted as principal in December 2025.The vacancies continue as the newly-promoted principals have not been given posting by the government yet. “The promoted principals will be allotted stations in March. These schools will have regular principals by the time the new academic session begins in April,” said Education Minister Rohit Thakur.As per officials in the Education Department, the postings have been withheld to ensure there is no impact on the current academic session due to such a large-scale shifting of lecturers and headmasters. A few principals, however, refuse to buy this argument and attribute the delay in posting to the struggle for securing the desired schools and stations. “If the government didn’t want the current session to be disturbed on account of these promotions, why were these promotions done in December? It could have been done in March,” said a school principal. “The more plausible reason for the delay is the pulls, pressure and political manoeuvring for getting the desired station,” he said.Many of these schools have been without regular principal for the past 2-3 years. A teacher pointed out that the institutions without regular head face a lot of administrative issues, which impact the teaching and learning processes as well. Besides, many schools which will function as CBSE-affiliated schools from this session are also without regular principal. “There is a lot of administrative work at the moment in these schools. And without a regular principal, it will be tough to handle it,” said the teacher.Another principal pointed out that quite a few promoted principals retired in December and January without functioning as a principal even for a single day. “And now, all promoted principals are getting increased salary while still doing their pre-promotion job. It would have been better if the promotions were given in March,” the principal said.