We agree with Education and Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon that religious education can play a significant role in shaping more responsible citizens.
Integrating moral values, integrity, and spiritual literacy into national curricula can certainly help stem social degradation and foster conscientious youth. Merely striving for efficiency and growth are meaningless if fellow citizens lack empathy and care.
With that said, in a nation built upon pluralism and constitutional guarantees of equal rights, regardless of one’s religion or faith, state policy regarding moral and religious education must strictly reflect our diverse national fabric.
If we are to educate our children about religion and faith, and expect them to be able to take the lessons they provide, then we must simultaneously ensure that no single faith receives majoritarian preference while neglecting the rest.
Bangladesh is home to millions of Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and ethnic minority citizens, among other faiths, whose traditions and values are integral to our national identity.
As such, when state officials frame moral development through the prism of a single religion, they risk alienating minority students and eroding the inclusive foundation of public education.
Every child attending a state school or general institution deserves access to moral instruction that honours, reflects, and respects their own heritage and faith, rather than being subjected to a standardized framework that treats non-majority traditions as an afterthought.
Modernizing our national education system therefore requires a delicate balance between core ethical values and secular inclusivity.
While streamlining madrasa education with mainstream science, arts, and technology is a welcome effort to bridge structural disparities that have existed for too long, national policy must also ensure that general public schools remain welcoming spaces for students of all backgrounds.
A truly progressive curriculum must emphasize universal values -- integrity, tolerance, civic responsibility, and mutual respect -- alongside comprehensive, high-quality instruction regarding students’ respective faiths. That should be the goal.
