Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS), a major NGO organised the seminar titled, 'Quality Education: Rights of Children' at its auditorium. It was held under a project, 'Exploring Civic Engagement at Grassroots Level for Ensuring Children Rights to Quality Education in Northwest Bangladesh'.

Presided over by Liaquat Ali Khan, social empowerment coordinator of RDRS, Nilphamari, the seminar was attended by Nilphamari deputy commissioner (DC) Robindra Nath Roy Chowdhury as chief guest.

The speakers said the children of the region are being deprived of quality education due to various drawbacks in the primary education system. They also pointed out different drawbacks.

The key-note paper was read out by the project coordinator, Sabina Yasmin. In her paper, she said the project has been aimed at enhancing the standard of primary education by organising the representatives of local government and non-government institutions, civil society members, conscious section of society and NGOs.

While addressing as chief, the DC said the objectives of primary education would be fulfilled by turning schools into a source of joy. He stressed on strengthening the monitoring system in primary schools by involving the district and upazila level administration officials.

Other speakers said the government thinks that the well-being of primary schools should be looked after by local people whereas people think the reverse. The situation should be changed, they said.

People of all sections of people involved in primary education participated in the seminar spontaneously.

Guardians, managing committee members, school and college teachers, local government representatives, journalists, thana education officers, NGO activists, lawyers and district administration officials took part in the seminar.

The project is functioning in 81 schools in three districts of Nilphamari, Kurigram and Panchagarh. Twenty-seven schools in three out of 6 upazilas in Nilphamari are functioning under the project. The project is funded by CARE (UK), BLAST, LEC (UK) which jointly formed the Manusher Jonno consortium. It started functioning from August last year and would continue till July, 2007.