Jamalpur, Rangpur districts to get rural development academies

The government has taken an initiative to establish two more rural development academies in Jamalpur and Rangpur districts.

The cabinet, in principle, approved the drafts of Sheikh Hasina Rural Development Academy, Jamalpur Act, 2022 and Rural Development Academy, Rangpur Act, 2022 in this regard during a meeting on Thursday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chaired the cabinet meeting held at her office.

The initiative was taken aiming to make the private sector, especially small and medium enterprises, more effective for the balanced development of the country. 

Briefing the reporters at the secretariat after the cabinet meeting, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said, "We need more academies similar to Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) and Rural Development Academy (RDA) to meet the necessities of growing work pressures."

Mentioning that both the draft acts have 23 sections, he said the two academies would be governed similarly to the BARD, Cumilla and RDA, Bogura.

“A 21-member board would be led by the minister or state minister or deputy minister of the ministry of local government, rural development and cooperatives, while secretary of the rural development and cooperative divisions would be vice-chairman and director-general of the academy would perform as the member secretary,” he said.

The cabinet secretary said the academy would be responsible mainly for capacity building works, conducting research and piloting some projects. "Research would be their fundamental job alongside piloting new projects to assess the utility of those," he added.

He said the academy, if necessary, could affiliate with educational institutions to offer diploma, post-graduation diploma and certificate courses alongside conducting different professional training courses.

With the new two, the number of rural development academies will be four in the country, said Anwarul Islam, adding that another academy would be established in Jashore.

The cabinet on Thursday also approved the draft of the National Voluntary Policy-2022.

He said the policy has been brought in line with sections 16 and 59 of Bangladesh's constitution, perspective plan, sustainable development goals, five-year plans and the directives for tackling Covid-19.

He added the policy would cover all volunteer services such as community services and educational activities, educational institutions and students, groups of destitute, inequality and deprived, environment groups, community cooperation groups, community political groups, organised social groups, comprehensive community activities, community festival, sports, entertainment, corporate volunteer service, relevance and spontaneous volunteer service, emergency service, emergency decision making and online volunteer services.

The cabinet secretary said although the local government ministry has initiated it, lots of ministries have the involvement with this job and according to the allocation of business, the ministry of disaster management would lead it.

Replying to a query regarding the policy, he said the United Nations (UN) has told the government that Bangladesh should have a volunteer policy as Bangladesh is mainly a pioneer country of volunteer activities.

Anwarul Islam said many countries have the policy but Bangladesh, as the first country, did it in an organised manner in 1973 under Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and then the volunteer activities expanded to many countries.

Due to the policy, foreign volunteers could work in Bangladesh while similarly, local volunteers could also work as UN volunteers in different countries, he said.