30 per cent students to get technical edn: Nahid

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Saturday said that the government has a plan to ensure 30 per cent student enrolment for the technical education by 2015 as country’s future growth depends on technology.
‘The government has raised the student enrolment up to 6 per cent for the technical education and it has to be enhanced further to expedite the development of the country,’ the minister said as the chief guest at a views exchange with the primary and secondary level students on their textbook appearance at city’s LGED Bhaban.
Earlier, only one per cent of the student took technical education and only two per cent of the total budget was spent for this branch of education. It needs to be changed for the interest of the country, said the minister.
Campaign for Popular Education in association with Manusher Jonno organised the programme chaired by the executive director of the campaign Rasheda K Chowdhury in the chair.
Dr Abdur Nur Tushar moderated the programme while director general of the Directorate of Primary Education Shyamal Kanti Gosh, director-general of the Bureau of Non-Formal Education and National Curriculum and Textbook Board chairman also spoke at the function.
After three years of extensive campaign on technical education, the minister said, ‘we got better response and now the government has doubled the number of seats from 12,000 of the polytechnic institutes of the country and around 98,000 students appeared for admission test during the last year.’
Terming Bangladesh the biggest textbook publisher in the world, Nahid said the present government is implementing various development plans for education, we have a plan to distribute some 31 crore text books in the next year free of cost among 3.70 crore students across the country.
As part of setting-up the multi-media class- room, he said the government will distribute computers to 23,300 schools by this year and computers have already been distributed to 16,000 primary schools.
Castigating the coaching-business in the country, Nahid said as per the estimation provided by the owners of the medical coaching centres in the country they have earned Tk 32,000 crore from the students by operating medical coaching for four months before the admission test.
Even a school teacher is earning Tk 4 lakh, per month, from coaching business without teaching at the class room, the minister pointed out.
Criticising the lower budget allocation for the education sector, former advisor to the caretaker government Rasheda K Chowdhury said Bangladesh is spending only 30-50 US dollars every year for a primary level student.