On Wednesday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina directed that steps to be taken to provide scout training to students in the country's educational institutions in order to develop them as worthy citizens for the development of Smart Bangladesh.
“I want to groom every child into a worthy citizen of the country. The Scouts have given moral and life-oriented education to them. Members of the Scouts are being developed as patriotic and conscious citizens with a mentality of rendering services,” she apparently said.
“You will have to take steps so that every student of all educational institutes would obtain scouting training. I believe thus we can have efficient citizens in our country for building Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal) or smart Bangladesh,” she said as well.
The PM said this while inaugurating the 32nd Asia-Pacific and 11th National Scout Jamboree at National Scout Training Center in Mouchak, Gazipur.
Bangladesh Scouts is hosting the 9-day regional and national scout jamboree on 19-27 January 2023.
Noting that there are now 2.2 million scouts in Bangladesh and a target to raise it to 3 million by 2030, Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina said that she wants every student to get scout training, not just a select group.
Md Abul Kalam Azad, the president of Bangladesh Scouts and the former principal secretary to the Prime Minister, also spoke at the event, and Mozammel Haque Khan, the chairman of the Jamboree Organizing Committee and the chief national commissioner of Bangladesh Scouts, delivered the welcome speech as well.
About 11,000 scouts including 8,000 scout members, 1,000 unit leaders and international service team (IST) members from the Asia Pacific region mostly from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Maldives, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, USA, Canada and Germany participated in this jamboree.