Govt to set up ‘Sheikh Hasina Language Research Trust’

The government has taken an initiative to set up ‘Sheikh Hasina Language Research Trust’ to preserve the endangered languages of the world.

The initiative has been taken as various languages of the world are almost extinct while many internationally recognised languages are being lost day by day due to lack of specialised research institutes for preservation of such languages.

The trust will protect the endangered languages and find out the lost languages of the world while it will also work to preserve and practise the existing languages.

Professor Dr Jinnat Imtiaz Ali, director general of International Mother Language Institute (IMLI), said that a virtual meeting was held on Wednesday on the draft of the law for setting up the trust. Education minister Dr Dipu Moni presided over the virtual meeting.

“We discussed inclusion and cancellation of some matters of the draft law in the meeting. After fixing the matters, the meeting will be called again in a short time to finalise the law,” he said

Sources in the Education Ministry said the ministry is going to formulate a separate law to set up the ‘Sheikh Hasina Language Research Trust’, which will be run under the IMLI.

The IMLI formulated a draft of a new law to set up the trust and a meeting was held on Wednesday to finalise draft of the law.

The law named ‘Sheikh Hasina Language Research Trust Act-2020’ is going to be enacted to conduct research activities, aiming to preserve, develop and standardise languages of the world.

According to the draft, the financial grants will be provided from the trust for research, acquisition of language skills, language training and preservation of endangered languages in different mother tongues of the world, including Bangladesh.

Under the trust, fellowships will be provided for the purpose of language research, language teaching and education extension. Trust will determine the number, rate, amount of all types of scholarships, fellowships, grants, training and others.

The draft further said the library of the IMLI will provide financial and technical assistance for the enrichment of the world's writing archives and language museums.

The trust will be able to undertake various projects for maintenance and protection of all movable and immovable property, implementation of goals and objectives of the trust.

The trust will work for publicity and publication of the researches of the trust at national and international levels.

It was learnt that addressing a programme on the occasion of International Mother Language Day on February 21 last year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced the formation of a trust to provide fellowships and conduct language education activities.

She wanted to form a trust fund under the IMLI where the government would provide a fund as seed money.

“From the interest of the seed money, the institute will award fellowship to students for learning languages. Learning language is very important. The institute would decide which languages they would teach here,” the premier said.

Later, the government took the initiative to form the trust, which is now going to see the light.

The Board of Trustee of the trust will have an advisory council while the prime minister will be the main patron of it. The finance minister, education minister, planning minister, foreign affairs minister, primary and mass education minister and cultural affairs minister will be the members of the trust.

The education minister will be the president of the trustee board where ministers and secretaries of several ministries, Bangladesh Bank governor, University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman, FBCCI president, two linguists and representative of Unesco in Bangladesh will be the members of the board.

The IMLI director general or director will be the member secretary of the board while all the nominated members will be appointed for three years.

The Board of Trustees may form one or more committees if necessary to assist in the activities of the trust. The Board of Trustee may determine the scope of work and form a committee consisting of a fixed number of members. The board must hold at least one meeting in every six months.

A permanent and current fund will be formed to conduct the trust. After passing the law, the government will provide a certain amount of money as a grant to implement the purpose of the trust. In addition, with the approval of the Board of Trustees, grants can be collected by local, foreign individuals and institutions.

The head office of the trust will be at IMLI. If necessary, the Board of Trustees may establish branch offices anywhere in the world with the approval of the government.