BNP Standing Committee Member Salahuddin Ahmed emphasised the need to ensure education in mother tongue up to the secondary level. He remarked while addressing a youth-focused conference titled “Shikkha o Shikkhangon”, organised by Arpon Alok Sangha at the Diploma Engineers Institute, Bangladesh in the capital’s Kakrail on Sunday.
In his speech as the chief guest, Salahuddin said, “Deprive the nation of intellect, and you can rule over it. Once drained, always drained.”
He expressed BNP’s vision that, if elected to power, the party would guarantee education in the mother tongue up to the secondary level while also ensuring students learn foreign languages alongside Bengali and English.
“Our political culture has to change,” he said, adding, “After independence, we failed to achieve what we could have.”
Speaking at the event, Jahangirnagar University Vice Chancellor Professor Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan said, “Education is not a commodity, and teaching is not a job; rather, it is a vow.” In the question of the issue of low research funding, he added, “There is not only a lack of allotment for research but also a lack of aspiring student researchers.”
When questioned about BNP’s education policy, the party’s media cell convener, Moudud Alamgir Pavel, said, “BNP does not aim to produce educated unemployed people. Besides Bangla and English, we aim to introduce a third language in a chronological learning method.”
Responding to a question regarding political activities on campus, Faiz Ahmed, senior assistant press secretary to the chief adviser, said, “The spirit of July-August is not apolitical, but impartial.”
Nasir Uddin Nasir, General Secretary of Jatiyatabadi Chatra Dal, and Abu Baker Mojumdar, Convener of Bangladesh Democratic Student Council were also present at the conference. The conference was moderated by Bithika Binte Hossain, founder of Arpon Alok Sangha.