Include different mediums in mainstream education
Speakers at a roundtable yesterday underscored the need for a unified education system, incorporating English medium and madrasa education into the mainstream with a view to putting an end to discrimination in the sector.
The education policy reflects the character of the state and the society, they said, adding that the nation wants a unified, scientific and realistic policy, which will produce competent citizens as well as complete human beings.
Eminent citizens organised the roundtable titled 'Education and Education Policy' at the Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh in the city.
Presiding over the roundtable, Justice Ghulam Rabbani said it is the education system, not religion, that can make a man rational, courageous, benevolent and selfless.
He urged all to work together to build a non-communal and democratic nation.
Noted academic Prof Serajul Islam Chowdhury said the nation wants a unified education system that will be free of discrimination, communalism and commercialisation.
People from the ethnic minorities and remotest areas should be entitled to the quota system, he added.
He also suggested providing subsidy to the poor students, minimising the financial gap between civil and military-run educational institutes, developing the curriculum and textbooks and increase the social status of the teachers.
Speaking as the chief guest, Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on education ministry, said the absence of an education policy since the independence gave birth to different education systems.
There was an attempt to incorporate different mediums into the mainstream in the proposed education policy, he said, adding that, "Implementation of the policy can be started from January 1 next year as we had said that the policy would be implemented in phases."
"We could not yet implement the universal, people-oriented, democratic and non-communal education system as stated in the constitution, but the new policy is indeed a good start," he said.
Prof Anu Muhammad of Jahangirnagar University said the education system has been commercialised which needs to be addressed immediately.
Many of the speakers, however, raised questions about the educational expenses and methods of the cadet colleges arguing that the draft education policy does not say anything about cadet colleges.
Prof Yasmin Haque of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) said the expenditure being spent on the students of cadet colleges is 40 times higher than the students of public universities.
Prof M Shamsul Alam of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (Cuet) presented a keynote paper while Kabery Gayen and Prof Abul Kashem Fazlul Haque of Dhaka University (DU), Prof Shamsuddin Illyas of Rajshahi University, Prof Sushanta Kumar Das, Prof Rezai Karim Khandaker and Prof Tulsi Kumar Das of SUST, Dr Nazrul Islam, president of technical education sub-committee of National Education Policy-2000, Shyamol Kanti Ghosh, director general of Directorate of Primary Education, and Khandaker Asaduzzaman of Anti-Corruption Commission also spoke.
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