Provide more funds for vocational training: PM
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday emphasised allocating more funds for technical and vocational training from the Prime Minister's Education Assistance Trust to develop a skilled and efficient generation.
"Skilled and efficient youths can be entrepreneurs instead of running after jobs. We should change this mindset [of running after jobs]," she said at the sixth advisory council members' meeting of the trust at her office.
Sheikh Hasina, also chief patron of the trust's advisory council, said the government formed it to give educational assistance to talented, disadvantaged students.
Stressing the need for updating information on stipends, she directed the authorities to give responsibilities to officials of the ministry concerned in this regard.
She also gave her consent to a proposal for allocating Tk 5 crore more as seed money to give financial assistance to MPhil and PhD students. The government earlier gave Tk 5 crore to this end. With the new money, the amount will be Tk 10 crore.
The prime minister, annoyed with excessive number of students in classrooms, asked the authorities to take effective measures in allowing students to get admitted to educational institutions in accordance with their seat capacity.
The education assistance trust was constituted in 2012 with Tk 1,000 crore as seed money, aimed at providing scholarships to underprivileged, meritorious students.
Since 2013, some Tk 550.9 crore has been provided to students as stipend and financial assistance. This year, the trust has decided to allocate over Tk 111.4 crore for 2,09,600 disadvantaged students of private educational institutions.
Advisory council members of the trust; Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal; Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni; Planning Minister MA Mannan and State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Md Zakir Hossen were present at the event.
Deputy Education Minister Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury; PM's Principal Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus; Finance Secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder; Dhaka University Vice Chancellor Dr Md Akhtaruzzaman; and University Grants Commission Chairman Kazi Shahidullah, also attended the meeting.
Comments