Education, care stressed for
children with disabilities
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Society has to be aware of the rights of people with disabilities, and families having members with disabilities should learn how to treat them, especially when they are in their childhood, said the minister for education, Dr Osman Farruk.
Farruk was speaking as chief guest in a publication ceremony of ‘creating barrier free inclusive community and rights based society for children with disability’ at the German Cultural Centre auditorium on Sunday.
Focusing on two much debated proposals — providing the disabled children with specialised school or integrating them in mainstream schools, Faruk said the book would help him to find guidelines on schooling the disabled children.
The Bangladesh Protibondhi Foundation and the Shishu Bikash Network organised the programme.
The programme chairperson, Dr Naushaba Khatun, who is also chairperson of the BPF, said people in country like Bangladesh are not sympathetic to the disabled people unless they themselves suffer from disabilities.
She stressed more research, publication, seminars and media coverage for prevention of disability, mitigation of suffering of the disabled, mainstreaming them and enhancement of their lifestyle.
The British Council director, June Rollinson, said many of the disabilities are preventable and many are related to poverty. It is their right to have access to education and it is the government’s duty to provide them with treatment and other supports, said June as special guest.
The book contains about 50 articles on a range of significant contemporary issues on the prevalence, identification, intervention, education and rehabilitation of children with disabilities in Bangladesh and other South Asian countries.
The articles written by national and international experts shed light on strategies which have helped in improving the quality of life of children with special needs.
The articles were presented at the second regional seminar on childhood disability from December 4-6 in Dhaka.
Dr Naila Z Khan, Sultana Banu, Sultana S Zaman also spoke at the programme.
Sultana S Zaman, Sultana Banu, Naila Khan, Shirin Zaman Munir and Shamim Ferdous edited the book.
Tourism Fair 2005 begins Thursday
ALPHA ARZU
The Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation will begin a four-day tourism fair at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka on Thursday.
Seventy tour and travel agencies and hotels, three of them from Nepal and Pakistan, will take part in six pavilions and 70 stalls in the Bangladesh Tourism Fair 2005.
The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, will inaugurate the country’s first ever fair of such kind.
The Bangladesh Tour Operators Association and the Bangladesh Hotel and Guest House Owners Association are the co-organisers and the Universal Media, ATN Bangla, Daily Star, Protham Alo and Waga Zone are the media partners of the fair. The participating companies will put on display their tourism related features, including information about tourism spots, accommodation, transportation, food, shopping and tour guide.
Some special package tour programmes for both local and foreign tourists will be offered in the fair, which will remain open for all between 10:00am and 8:00pm. The entry fee has been fixed at Tk 20.
The senior vice-president (sales and marketing of ATN Bangla), the president of Hotel and Guest House Owners Association, Sadique Ahsan, chief co-ordinator of the fair, Atique Md Shamsuzzoha, and president of Tour Operators Association, Faridul Haque, and secretary general, Towfiq Rahman, were present at the briefing.
Opposition parties rally
against bomb attacks
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Different opposition political parties on Sunday blamed the government for patronising the Islamist militants.
Leaders of the opposition parties also urged the government to identify the ministers and lawmakers patronising the militant groups, and expel them from the government. They made the call from the rallies organised across the country in protest against the continual bomb attacks by the Islamist militants.
As part of the countrywide programme, the Awami League-led opposition alliance held a protest rally at Muktangan. AL presidium member Abdur Razzak urged the government to oust the two Jamaat ministers from the cabinet.
The Workers Party of Bangladesh president, Rashed Khan Menon, criticised the role of the state minister for home affairs for creating a character of Hindu militant.
Chaired by Abdur Razzak, the rally was addressed by AL presidium member Matia Chowdhury and Gana Forum general secretary Saif Uddin Ahmed Manik.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh and Bikalpadhara Bangladesh also held protest rallies.
JP field level leaders decline
to join 4-party alliance
BDNEWS, Dhaka
The Jatiya Party chairman, HM Ershad, failed to persuade district level leaders of the party to join the ruling four-party alliance to form an electoral alliance.
District level leaders categorically told the party chairman, ‘The python named Jamaat has swallowed the BNP to the waist and it is now welcoming you (Ershad) to save it’, adding, ‘If you cannot control yourself it would swallow you too.’
In reply, after failing to convince the party’s field level leaders, Ershad said, ‘The decision on the issue would be announced from the grand rally on March 1. Let me take the decision on the matter.’
Ershad called the district level presidents and general secretaries to a meeting on Sunday to discuss the issue of joining the BNP-led four-party alliance in the party forum.
BNP accuses AL of destroying
pro-election environment
MOAZZEM HOSSAIN
The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Sunday accused main opposition Awami League of trying to destroy the pro-election environment sensing yet another landslide victory of the BNP-led alliance.
‘They [Awami League] are out to destabilise the election friendly environment realising that BNP is heading towards another landslide victory like that of 2001,’ the BNP secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said.
Chairing a meeting of the BNP national executive committee at his Baily Road residence, Bhuiyan, also the LGRD and cooperatives minister, said all the Awami League activities proved that they did not want election other than cashing crop from a chaotic situation.
Expressing hope for a massive victory again in the next general elections, he said the BNP-led alliance had implemented most of its election pledges and was committed to fulfil the remaining before the polls.
‘People will obviously remain with us as we have already implemented most of our election pledges despite non-cooperation from the opposition,’ he said and called upon the party men to start election campaigns through the December 21 ‘grand rally’ in Dhaka.
Twenty-five ministers and lawmakers, including environment and forest minister Tariqul Islam, communications minister Nazmul Huda and land minister Shamsul Islam, addressed the meeting convened to discuss the latest political situation, ways to combat militancy and review preparations for the rally to be held in protest against the recent bomb attacks and ‘anarchy let loose by the AL’.
The leaders suggested steps to end factional feuds, holding of rallies and other organisational activities at all levels, increased tour of the ministers and lawmakers to their constituencies and completion of development works at some places within mid 2006.
About the countrywide recent bomb attacks, they observed that the government was in the right track for its effort to hold dialogues with the opposition parties.
They also requested the government to think whether it could take step to summon a special session of the Jatiya Sangsad if the Awami League wanted to talk on the issue in parliament.
‘We agreed to talk to them anywhere — in and outside the parliament —on the issues they raised, but they will not sit with us,’ Bhuiyan said and added that if they continued to refuse to sit with the government, who would take steps to reform the caretaker government provision and other issues? ‘The Awami League is by no means a manageable party’.
He also accused the AL of talking in favour of the militants instead of extending cooperation to the government although it (government) had sought cooperation from them to curb militancy. ‘They think the BNP government is in crisis, not the country.’
Criticising the AL’s plan for seeking the UN help, the ruling party leaders said they continued seeking help from the foreign agencies instead of helping the government in this regard.
AMCHAM MEETING ON
EDN SYSTEM REFORMS
Edn minister proposes,
document opposes
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The education minister, M Osman Farruk, on Sunday delivered misinformation about a decision of introducing a school-based assessment system for all the students from Class VI to IX from academic year 2006.
About the assessment system, the education minister, while speaking as the guest of honour at the monthly luncheon meeting of the
American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh (AmCham), said, ‘We got positive responses while piloting the system in more than 100 schools earlier.’
‘The decision was taken after proper piloting, Farruk said, adding,
‘I believe it will discourage private coaching as it will attach more importance to classroom performance.’
Under the system, 30 per cent of a student’s marks in classes between six and nine will depend on criteria such as leadership abilities, behaviour and extra-curricular activities, as assessed by class teachers.
But a summary of a high-powered education ministry meeting, held in June, 2005 shows that the minister’s speech on SBA was baseless and simple a misinformation.
‘Although the SBA [pilot] programme was implemented in all institutions, teachers
had problems regarding assessment of students’ values and behaviour,’ the ministry paper reads.
‘Objections raised in the meeting over teachers’ ability to judge students’ morality and honesty,’ the education ministry summary on the SBA meeting reads.
‘Widespread limitations in the evaluation process and the maintaining of academic records on extra-curricular activities have been observed [during the pilot project],’ the ministry document also points out.
The ministry document also reveals that only 17.4 per cent of the teachers at the 20 secondary schools and 20 madrassahs, where the SBA pilot programme was undertaken, received training on how to work with the new system.
‘The majority of teachers have remained outside of the training programme,’ the document warned.
Farruk in a September 1, 2005 press briefing formally declared that the government has decided to introduce the SBA system from Class VI to IX and a uni-track secondary education system, instead of current multi-track system, from 2006. A December 5 cabinet meeting, however, has deferred the introduction of uni-track and SBA by a year to ‘avoid political chaos.’
Welcoming the guests to the meeting, AmCham president Andrew L Fawthrop said, ‘What is required is to speed up the process of reforms — remove corruption from the education sector, and give due recognition to the most brilliant teachers and students by encouraging them to engage in nation-building activities.’
The topic of the discussion meeting was ‘Need for Reforms in the Education System of Bangladesh’.
EU proposes addressing concerns of Bangladesh, LDCs in WTO
UNITED NEWS OF BANGLADESH, Dhaka
The European Union Sunday proposed that the World Trade Organisation should agree in its Hong Kong ministerial meet to adopt a package of development measures addressing the legitimate concerns of Bangladesh and other LDCs.
‘These measures include granting by others duty and quota-free access for LDC goods and a substantial aid for trade package,’ the European Commission said in a statement a day before the 6th session of the WTO ministerial kicks off Tuesday.
It said the EU has made ‘substantial and constructive’ proposals in all major areas on the Hong Kong agenda, including agriculture, non-agricultural market access and services. ‘The EU recognises that development is central to this WTO round.’
As regards trade package, the statement said, the EC had pledged to provide one billion euros annually in aid for trade.
‘This is a key to strengthening the capacity of developing countries to trade,’ it said, adding that the EU is already giving more trade-related assistance than the rest of the world combined. The EU called upon others to make the same commitment at the WTO conference.
The EC urged all the industrialised WTO members to make commitment for providing duty and quota-free access to all products from all LDCs. ‘Despite pledges made at various occasions, other developed countries have, however, not followed the suit.’
The EU said the adoption of a package of special and differential treatment proposals to improve the flexibility for LDCs was already under consideration in the WTO and it would propose a ‘Round For Free’ for LDCs - no obligatory tariff cuts or market access offers.
It said work should be intensified on addressing preference erosion while many G-90 countries have expressed fears that serious tariff cuts would erode the preferential access they currently have to the EU market.
‘The EU believes that solution to this problem lies in reducing tariffs in a way that allows adjustment for these exporters, and the provision of aid- for-trade assistance to help exporters adapt to the erosion of preferential access,’ said the statement.
The EU will also ask for extension of current LDC exemptions from the TRIPS agreement in the WTO ministerial meet.
Geography Society confce ends
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The three-day international conference on the theme of ‘geography and environment: issues and challenges’ ended in Dhaka on Sunday with a common stand for harmony between man and environment.
The conference was organised in the LGED Bhaban auditorium to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh Geographical Society.
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