Education and Primary and Mass Education Minister A N M Ehsanul Haque Milon on Tuesday said the Education Reform Initiative (ERI) would play an important role in improving the quality of education and shaping Bangladesh’s future.
He made the remarks as chief guest at a public lecture titled “Education for Building a Prosperous Economy: Skills, Linguistic Competence and Global Mobility”, organised by ERI at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) auditorium in Dhaka.
The minister said ERI had begun its activities with the goal of improving the quality of education. The initiative would conduct research to identify weaknesses in the country’s education system and explore ways to overcome them and build the Bangladesh of the future.
He said ERI would work sincerely to help implement Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s vision.
Milon said the quality of education needed to be further improved to move the country forward. Cross-border education and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) were therefore receiving greater emphasis.
He said work was under way under the prime minister’s leadership to use the TVET sector to transform the population into human resources and advance the country’s socio-economic development.
Referring to teacher recruitment, the minister said no decision had been taken on recruiting teachers through managing committees. Only preliminary discussions had taken place on the matter.
National Professor Mahbub Ullah chaired the event, while Prime Minister’s Adviser for Economy and Planning Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir attended as special guest.
Dhaka University Professor M Niaz Asadullah presented the keynote paper.
MarcoPolo AI CEO Tasfia Tasnim, Bdjobs CEO A K M Fahim Mashroor, UNESCO Representative to Bangladesh Susan Vize and Chinese Embassy Cultural Counsellor Li Shaopeng took part in the discussion.
Later, the minister attended as chief guest a session titled “Reconstructing Fragile Economy and Achieving SDGs” at a national conference on the Sustainable Development Goals at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre.
Speaking at the session, he said education must be given the highest priority for sustainable development.
The current government had adopted various plans aimed at achieving sustainable development, he said, adding that human resource development was crucial to implementing those plans.
“There is no alternative to education for human resource development,” he said.
The session was chaired by former Asian Development Bank Director General Sultan Hafeez Rahman.
State Minister for Planning Md Junaid Abdur Rahim Saki attended as special guest, while Secondary and Higher Education Division Secretary Abdul Khaleque presented details of the ministry’s SDG-related activities.
