BNP has taken various steps to empower women and widen access to education whenever it has been in charge of running the state, the party’s acting secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has said. He said BNP had also given importance to expanding educational opportunities for women.
He made the remarks on Saturday (September 19) in his address as chief guest at a reception for students who performed well in the SSC examinations, held at Keraniganj Women’s Degree College.
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that when women are educated, the benefit is not confined to the family alone: society and the state benefit as well. Educating and empowering women can carry a family forward and can also play a part in the progress of society and the state, he said.
He said the party’s acting chairman, Tarique Rahman, had proposed extending free education for women up to the honours degree level. Educating women and equipping them with skills makes positive change possible in the family, in society and in the state, he added.
Education and the education system are of immense importance to a nation’s progress, he said. No nation can survive in a competitive world if education is neglected — and yet, he said, the country’s education system had been trifled with over the past 17 years.
Rizvi said there had been a time when the importance of education was not properly considered. Irregularities and mismanagement at various levels of the education system had harmed students, and the effect had been felt by the whole nation.
He alleged that on many occasions the questions were merely written on the question paper, with no proper measures taken beyond that to ensure the quality of education. Pressure was even applied through telephone calls from powerful quarters to have students passed. Because such practices went on for a long time, he said, the quality of the country’s education system suffered.
He said that to compete in the various branches of technology in today’s world, students must be equipped with modern knowledge and skills. But the country’s education system had been run in a way that hampered Bangladesh’s capacity to compete globally in technological terms. “Arrangements had been made to render us inactive,” he said.
Stressing the modernisation of educational institutions, Rizvi said institutions must be given modern infrastructure, technological equipment and a knowledge-based learning environment. Students should not be confined to conventional education alone but prepared for a world built on modern technology and knowledge.
Education is one of the principal foundations of a country’s development, he said, and no nation can move forward without adequate educational opportunity and incentive. Opportunities must therefore be created for students’ talent and ability to develop, and alongside greater investment and incentives in education, a suitable environment for learning must be ensured.
He added that investment and incentives are needed for students’ talent and ability to flourish, and that institutions must be given the necessary infrastructure, technology and learning environment. To build a knowledge-based society, he said, there is no alternative to making the education system keep pace with the times.
Teachers, students, parents and people from various levels of the local community attended the event at Keraniganj Women’s Degree College, where students who achieved strong SSC results were honoured.