Education Minister Ehsanul Haque Milon said July would never disappear from the memory of Bangladesh’s people, speaking at a July mass uprising memorial event at Dhaka Government Polytechnic Institute on August 1. He said the younger generation brought the country back during July and August, and that Bangladesh had been regained through the sacrifices of hundreds of martyrs.

Milon said the country must move beyond conventional ideas of education, arguing that technical education has no alternative for building an advanced Bangladesh. He said Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has adopted a plan to turn the country’s large population into human resources. Skilled technical workers are in demand worldwide, he added, and training migrant workers before sending them abroad could further strengthen the economy.

The minister announced plans to establish four more engineering colleges in Bangladesh and pledged to develop Dhaka Government Polytechnic Institute as a model institution. He urged students to build greater innovative capacity and work toward a better Bangladesh. At the event, he presented commemorative plaques to relatives of two polytechnic students killed in the July uprising and draped shawls over injured students from the institute.