PM for more technical education to grab job market

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Wednesday stressed the need for flourishing science and technology-based technical and vocational education in a wider way alongside general education in the country to meet the growing job market demand.
‘Science and technology-based technical education should have to be spread widely in the country alongside the general education so that they (students) could groom up themselves and gain financial solvency,’ she said.
The prime minister was addressing the inauguration of the Technical and Vocational Education Week 2014 at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.
Hasina said her government had been implementing various measures so that the teenagers and youths feel more encouraged to have technical and vocational education to create more employment opportunities and thus contribute to the country’s development to a great extent.
‘I believe our children have much more talents and they could flourish those if get little scope.’
Mentioning that education was the only tool which could free the country from poverty, Hasina said the country’s education system was being reformed so that the future generation could receive standard education.
In this connection, she listed the introduction of semester system, grade point average evaluation system in the country’s education sector alongside upgrading the educational curriculum to international standards after assuming office in 1996.
Lambasting the BNP-Jamaat alliance for taking backwards the country in the education sector, especially the literacy rate, the prime minister said, ‘They had skills in moving backwards not moving forwards.’
Hasina said in 1996-2001, the literacy rate had gone up to 65 per cent from 45 per cent, but it came down to 50 per cent during the successive BNP-Jamaat rule.
About the pass rate in public examinations that reached over 92 per cent, the prime minister said the pass rate also shot up over 98 per cent in a neighbouring country. ‘I think that our children are very meritorious.’
She also took a swipe at talk-show panellists who often raised questions about the standard of country’s education system following the high pass rate.
Hasina said that if the country’s about 16 crore people, including 80 to 90 lakh expatriate Bangladeshis, could be groomed up skilfully, then Bangladesh would no longer lag behind and stand on its own feet.