Public sector needs to be modernised: Gowher Rizvi

Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser Gowher Rizvi yesterday said the public service sector needed reform and modernisation to achieve the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Vision 2041.

“The most critical people in achieving SDGs and Vision 2041 are the public servants,” he told a seminar on “Human Resource Development: Need for Education and Administrative Sector Reform for Realisation of Vision 2041”.

National Defence College (NDC) organised the seminar on its campus in the capital's Mirpur.

Rizvi said public servants were supplemented by the private sector and civil society but they would have to "carry the brand".

The draft Public Service Act-2015 has been “floating” because there are people objecting certain parts of it, he added.

He said there was no alternative to democracy and inclusiveness for earning sustainable and equitable development.

Presenting a keynote paper, noted educationist and academic Prof Syed Manzoorul Islam said “sweeping” reforms were required in the education sector to achieve the targets of Vision 2041.

These reforms should include a substantial increase in education budget and an emphasis on several areas like early childhood education, technical and science education, and adult literacy, he said.

“In its current state, our education sector cannot ensure the level of human resource development that we require in order to graduate from a lower middle income country to a developed country by 2041,” he said.

Former education secretary Nazrul Islam Khan and NDC Commandant Lt Gen Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy, among others, spoke at the seminar, which was moderated by NDC senior faculty member Air Vice Marshal M Sanaul Huq.