Education and Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr ANM Ehsanul Haque Milon has called for stronger cooperation between Bangladesh and China in education and technology to make the two countries’ longstanding friendship more sustainable.

He made the remarks while addressing the inaugural session of the 2nd China-Bangladesh Roundtable on Governance Experience Exchange at a hotel in Dhaka on Monday.

The roundtable was organised to strengthen bilateral cooperation in education, human resource development, the blue economy and disaster management.

Highlighting Bangladesh’s demographic dividend, Milon said around 65% of the country’s population is young.

Developing the country’s workforce into internationally skilled human resources through technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is a key priority of the government, he said.

Referring to his recent visit to China, the minister said the government had taken initiatives to bring technical institutions in Bangladesh up to international standards by learning from China’s close industry-academia links.

Memorandums of understanding (MoUs) have been signed with several Chinese institutions in this regard, he said.

The government plans to gradually increase education spending from 2% to 5% of GDP, with a significant share of the allocation going towards improving the quality of technical education, Milon said.

“Plans are also underway to establish a specialised university focusing on the blue economy to harness the economic potential of the Bay of Bengal,” he added.

Former Home Minister and Patuakhali-1 MP Air Vice Marshal (retd.) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr ABM Obaidul Islam, Chinese Embassy Cultural Counsellor Li Shaopeng and Vice-President of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies Dr Li Kaisheng also spoke at the event.