Bangladesh to chair the E-9 for next two years

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the meeting on February 5 at Radisson Blue hotel, said Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid in a press conference held at Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS). Bangladesh will assume the chairmanship from Pakistan, who will hand it over to Nahid on the first day of the three-day meeting. All E-9 forum members – Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan – will attend the 11th E-9 meeting. Nahid said: “By hosting the E-9 ministerial meeting on education, Bangladesh will hold the chairmanship for the next two years. We hope the meeting will be an important initiative to carrying out the Education For All initiative, keeping in mind the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030.” He also said, after the meeting ends, the “Dhaka Declaration” will be adopted by the member countries to ensure SDG-4 is implemented by undertaking effective strategies at the meeting. Along with the education ministers of the member countries, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova will attend the inauguration. The E-9 forum was founded in 1993 in New Delhi with the aforementioned countries, which represent 60% of the world population, over two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults, and over half of the world’s out-of-school children. The forum seeks to realise the goals of UNESCO’s Education For All (EFA) initiative through discussions on experiences in education, exchanges of best practices, and monitoring of progress on achieving the EFA.