DHAKA : Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid today urged all to be aware so that their children cannot join militancy or terrorism.

“All, including guardians and teachers, must increase their vigilance on the activities of students so that they move forward on the right path,” he told a discussion at the auditorium of National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM) here.

Islamic Arabic University (IAU) organized the discussion on “Standardization of Fazil honours education”.

Secretary of Secondary and Higher Secondary Division Md Sohrab Hossain, among others, addressed the discussion with Vice Chancellor of IAU Prof Dr Muhammad Ahsan Ullah in the chair.

Nahid said, “Alongside Islamic education, students have to acquire knowledge of different disciplines, including science and ICT, to develop themselves as skilled workforce in the country.”

He said some 1,332 new buildings for madrasas were constructed in the past eight years to expand madrasa education across the country.

“Alongside infrastructural development, we have prepared modern curriculum incorporating science and technology to make madrasa education time-befitting,” he added.

“Like the students of general education, students studying at madrasas have access to better job market… They will make contributions to society acquiring both Islamic and scientific knowledge,” the minister added.

The number of students in higher education at both madrasa and general levels has increased significantly as the government has taken various effective steps in the past couple of years, the minister said.

“As part of massive digitization campaign, multimedia classrooms have so far been set up at 5 ,500 madrasas,” he said, adding that multimedia classrooms will be established in the remaining madrasas in phases.

“We have set up 35 model madrasas, where science and technology have been included (in syllabus),” he added.