Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday asked all concerned to ensure enrollment of each and every child in the school and urged politicians not to create any impediment on the way of educational development.
“No boys and girls should not be out of school,” she said adding in the next budget the government would allocate more money to raise the capital of the Prime Minister’s Education Assistance Trust fund.
The prime minister said this while distributing scholarship among degree level students given from the Prime Minister’s Education Trust at a function at her office in Dhaka on Sunday.
Urging the well-off people to come forward to donate in the Trust Fund the PM reiterated her government’s stand to provide tax rebate to such donors.
Sheikh Hasina said a massive change has been brought to the education sector over the last six years to make it parallel to the global standard. In view of this a progressive education policy has been formulated where importance was given to science and technology based education.
In addition emphasis was given to mathematical studies, linguistic studies, vocational education, she said adding the government has allocated necessary budget to achieve the goal of the education policy.
The prime minister said the government has come with financial assistance to education sector considering the low income capacity of the parents to support children for education.
“So, the government has taken the responsibility of giving textbooks free of cost for their children before the new academic year,” she said. Since 2010 to 2015 academic year, she said, about 159 crore textbooks were distributed, what was a surprise for the world.
Free textbooks has not only reduced the burden of the guardians but also contributed to increase the enrollment of more than 1.69 crore students in schools. She said steps were taken to publish the result of public examination within sixty days.
“All steps taken by our government has resulted in drastically reduce the drop-out rate, improving the quality of education and encouraging children to devote in their studies,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said as far as education is concerned we have to keep pace with the present time. So, necessary change has been brought in the grading system of exams result.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid presided over the function while education secretary Nazrul Islam Khan and Managing Director of the Trust Nurul Amin also spoke on the occasion.
Pointing out creation of the PM’s Education Assistance Trust, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said the Trust has been created considering the financial inability of many parents to continue the education of their kids.
She said the Trust has been established with a seed money of Taka 1,000 crore and the capital would be raised up this year by giving more budgetary allocation. “The fund of the Trust should be more big in size,” she said urging the well-off people to donate money to the fund.
Sheikh Hasina said education is the foremost requisite to make the country poverty-free. Taking this into consideration, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman recognized the education as one of the basic rights of the people in the country’s constitution, making primary and female education fully complimentary.
The prime minister handed over cheques of scholarship to dozens of degree level students saying a total of 1,74,446 students including 15,957 male would be given scholarship this year.
Sheikh Hasina said a total of Taka 2245.65 crore were distributed among 1,33,7000 student over the last four years, out of which 75 percent was girls. The scholarship has brought epoch making change in the arena of female education, she said.
On the occasion the PM announced her government’s plan to provide financial support to the poor students for school admission and in case of accidental injuries from the Trust Fund.

–Our Monitor (Photo: PID)