The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Taka 21,112 crore were allocated in the proposed national budget for 2008-09 for human resource development, which is 21.1 percent of the total budget.

Finance Advisor Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam in his budget speech yesterday said human resource development is one of the prime conditions for achieving a sustained economic and social development.

He said education and health are the major inputs for human resource development.

The Advisor said the 6-year Second Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-11) with an outlay of Tk. 1,800 crore is being implemented to widen primary education and to enhance its quality.

Around 55 lakh students are receiving stipends annually. All these steps have helped achieving 50:50 ratio of male and female students at government primary schools.

In FY 2008-09, as many as 33,00,000 newly literate persons will be imparted job-oriented training to help retain their level of literacy and to raise their living standards.

The ongoing programme will continue to bring down the current student-teacher ratio of 55:1 to 46:1 and to increase the rate of enrollment to 90 percent by 2009.

He said ninety-eight percent of the secondary and higher secondary educational institutions are privately managed. In order to raise the quality of these institutions, the payment of MPO subvention has been linked to their performance.

Aziz said the Non-government Teachers' Registration and Certification Authority (NTRCA) is at work for ensuring the recruitment of quality teachers.

He said the disparity that exists in the quality of education between the urban and rural areas is widening. In order to reduce this gap, he said steps have been taken to establish model high schools in those upazilas where there are no government schools. A selection process is underway to select 63 schools to convert them into model high schools.

The Advisor said significant progress has been made in female education, following the increased enrollment of female students at secondary and higher secondary level by 52 percent.

Against this backdrop, he said a stipend programme for the poor male students will also be introduced in next fiscal year in 121 Upazilas to increase the rate of enrollment of male students.

The Advisor said guidelines for female stipend programme will be revised to lay greater emphasis on quality education. Only around 2-3 percent of the total students at the secondary and higher secondary level receive technical and vocational education.

Consistent with national goals, he said vocational education at various levels is being introduced to equip the youth force with technical and vocational skills.

He said to retain the quality of 34 education in both the public and private sector, the government has recently approved the Private Universities Ordinance, 2008.

Under this Ordinance, an Accreditation Council will be constituted to compare the higher education system with the international standards to determine the standing of our public and private universities.

In the current fiscal year, he said Tk. 10 crore were allocated to carry out research in the areas of physical, mathematical and biological sciences. In the next fiscal year, the Advisor proposed to allocate Tk. 15 crore to this end.

On health sector, Aziz said adequate and planned investment in the health sector is fundamental to human resource development.

To this end, he said the government is implementing a seven-year (2003-2010) Health, Nutrition and Population Sector Programme (HNPSP) at an estimated outlay of Tk. 32,450 crore.

As a step towards updating the existing polices and laws, he said the government is revising National Health Policy, rules relating to hospital waste management, private medicare laws and the Essential Drugs Lists.

Aziz noted the Government is laying emphasis on increased involvement of private initiative in the health sector. Implementation of a programme is underway to outsource the management of 342 community clinics and 130 Union Health and Family Welfare Centres and Hospitals to the private sector.