Barisal Zila School

Barisal Zila School is regarded as one of the best schools of Bangladesh. The then district magistrate Mr. Garate took an imitative to establish a school in Barisal and following his move serampore mission with the financial assistance of local people established a school on 23 December 1829 named Barisal English School on a land owned by local Zamindar Mr. Lucas located on the western side of the Protestant Church. Mr. John Smith was the Head Teacher of the School in 1829. The School was later shifted to the Brown Compound and finally in 1842 it was shifted to the present site. The District Magistrate and Secretary of the School Committee Mr. EJ Burton had to remind the government frequently to take step for the development of the school as per instruction of the then Governor of Bengal. He raised a fund of 38,817 rupees contributed by the local well-to-do people and deposited to the government for the development of the school. As a result the government took over the ownership and management of the school and built up the new school building complex over a land of 20 acres owned by Mr. Spencer in 1853. The school was renamed as Barisal Zila School. That school building has been demolished for renovation.

Barisal Zila School produced many leading local reformers, politicians, statesmen and veternan educationist, philosophers poets-writers and sportsmen those femous personalities include Sher-E-Bangla ak fazlul huq, Former Speaker Abdul Jabbar Khan, Former President abdur rahman biswas, Comrade Promod Dasgupta, Sardar Fazlul Karim, Kali Prasanna Ghosh, writer Buddhadev Guha, Music composer Altaf Mahmud, Actor Golam Mostafa and Ex-chief of Army staff Lt. General Hasan Masud Choudhury. In 1971, the students of this school played a glorious role in the war of liberation.

In 1961, the school was turned into a Pilot school to bring changes, reforms and extension under the supervision of American experts.

These are six academic buildings including the administrative one, a mosque, a student hostel, two playgrounds and a modern computer laboratory in the school campus.

Higher secondary courses were introduced in the school from 2008-2009 academic sessions. The school at present (2010) has 2500 students. The number of teachers is 53, who run classes in two shifts. [Sabina Yasmin] [Yasmin, Sabina Headmistress, Barisal Zila School]