Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education Ministry, yesterday laid importance on an education system without any discrimination.
He said the poor children are being deprived of flourishing their merit under the present education system in the country.
For that reason, he said the educational institutions where the children of downtrodden people are studying should be given more patronisation through resource allocation and creating necessary infrastructure for education.
Menon was addressing as the chief guest a reception accorded to brilliant SSC students of Shaheed Faruk Iqbal Girls High School at Malibagh in the city.
The reception was accorded to the students for showing their excellence in this year's Secondary School Certificate examinations.
The school, named after Shaheed Faruk Iqbal, former general secretary of Abujar Gifari College and the martyr of the War of Liberation.
Headmistress Dipti Rani Rajbangshi, local political leader Hashemddin Haider Pahari, Abujar Gifari College Principal Nurunnabi Siddiqui spoke at the function with managing committee president and ADC (gen) of Dhaka Abu Hena Morshed Zaman in the chair.
Menon said the girls' education should be promoted as women are still being neglected in all spheres of society though "We talk about women's empowerment."
He urged the girls to read the lives and works of the great women like Begum Rokeya, being imbued with the spirit of War of Liberation and make efforts to build a happy, prosperous and secular Bangladesh by 2021.