Education a must to remove discrimination, corruption CA

Chief Adviser to the Caretaker Government Fakhruddin Ahmed Monday said the education for all is essential to establish good governance in the country and remove discrimination, corruption and injustice from the society, reports UNB bdnews24.com.brDr Fakhruddin Ahmed made the remarks while speaking at a function organised by Primary and Mass Education Ministry at the Osmani Memorial auditorium in the city Monday on the occasion of International Literacy Day-2008. brPrimary and Mass Education Adviser Rasheda K Chowdhury presided over the function while Secretary to the Ministry Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan gave the welcome address. brAdvisers to the caretaker government, special assistants to the Chief Adviser, representatives of development partners, students and teachers and government officials were present at the function.brSpeaking on the occasion, Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed said his government was working relentlessly to establish a just and modern democratic social setup and education is essential for that. The country's present literacy rate is 63 per cent, the function was told.brThe theme of this year's International Literacy Day is 'Literacy, Key to Help Wellbeing'. brThe Chief Adviser said the objectives of his government are to establish good governance, transparency, accountability and universal human rights, and to attain the goals, educated and enlightened people are necessary.brHe also said despite spending billions since independence the government's literacy drive was far from achieving the goals it had set out to. brThe literacy movement got formal shape at the end of the last century. In independent Bangladesh many programmes have been taken to achieve literacy and huge money has been spent for the purpose. But after all this our achievement in the area remained limited. We should have achieved much more.brDr Fakhruddin Ahmed called upon all to come forward to take effective steps and collective initiatives to fully free the country from the curse of illiteracy, and there is no scope of wasting time in this regard. We have to prove that if we wish we could make any impossible thing possible. Today, this should be our vow to make the literacy campaign a success.brDr Fakhruddin said investment in education means making the best investment and keeping this in mind the present government has made the highest allocation of over Tk 120 billion in the national budget for education and technology sectors. He emphasised the need for utilising the allocation.brBesides, he said, the second Primary Education Development Programme involving about Tk 75 billion was being implemented as per commitment of making education for all by the year 2015 and to ensure the standard of education at the primary level.brThe Chief Adviser made a clarion call to all, including teachers, guardians, officers and employees, school managing committees, representatives of non-government organisations and development partners to work together to ensure education for all.brIt was informed at the function that recently the Chief Adviser has donated Tk 20 million from the Chief Adviser's Relief and Welfare Fund to Shishu Kalyan Trust (Child Welfare Trust) to keep providing scholarships for poor meritorious students by the trust.brDr Fakhruddin observed that light of education will have to be spread everywhere to create honest and patriotic future citizens and leaders. brSo, all will have to come forward with whatever the abilities one has-physical labour, financial and knowledge and advice. We'll have to make sure that no one is deprived of standard education.brAwards were given out in different categories including in the best teacher and best educational institution.