Mayek Kantha was screened at the Liberation War Museum on April 5 as part of the ongoing Ethnic Diversity Council. The screening was followed by a discussion.

The programme was presided over by Professor Zehadul Karim. Eminent educationist Professor Zillur Rahman Siddiqui was the chief guest and Shahana Hayat, country director of Volunteer Oversees, Bangladesh was the special guest. Among other discussants were Dr Dwijendranath Sarkar and Bibhash Chakraborti. Abul Momen, editor of Chittagong Edition of the daily Prothom Alo was the moderator of the programme.

Discussants at the programme pointed out the hurdles in implementing education for minority groups in their own languages. They said that the educated individuals from the minority groups should work at the schools to teach their people. Discussants also focused on the responsibilities of the government.

Shahana Hayat said, "Ethnicity, language and culture are interrelated. So, for the existence of their identities, languages of these ethnic groups should be preserved."

Abul Momen said, "A few of these ethnic minorities have their own alphabets. They need to write their own textbooks but writing textbooks in any language is a challenging job. Then the question arises 'are they capable of writing textbooks on their own?' Several ethnic minority groups live together in one area. Sometimes, the total number of population of a smaller community is around 200. Under these circumstances it is really difficult to run a school where children of an ethnic group will learn up to primary level in their own language. NGO schools are only preparing the children of these minority groups to adapt in mainstream education. I believe a language institute involving experts and the representatives of the minority groups can solve the crisis."

Professor Zillur Rahman Siddiqui said, "Like the English language, Bangla can also be enriched by incorporating elements from languages of these ethnic groups. In this case it's necessary to develop these languages."

Professor Zehadul Karim said, "The ethnic groups, which do not have their own alphabets, are strongly divided among themselves. As most of them have converted to Christianity, they use 'Roman' alphabet for their language. And only a few who believe that they have to live with Bengalis and need to learn Bangla for higher education use Bangla alphabet for their own language. So, we should work together to overcome this dilemma."

At the end of the programme, Dr Shourabh Shikdar responded to questions from the audience on the documentary. He agreed with the audience that many ethnic minority groups such as Rakhains have not been featured in Mayek Kantha.