Dhaka: Taking a swipe at those who have been questioning the standards of education, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday asked the critics to fix the standards first.

‘Those who are raising questions about the quality and standard of the education in the country, I’ll tell them everything cannot be fixed overnight. We don’t get the scale of standard of the education from them,’ she said.

The Prime minister said this while speaking at the inauguration of textbook distribution among schoolchildren at her official residence Ganabhaban, reports UNB.

She also asked the critics to give some voluntary services to find out the areas where the standard of the education is not good. ‘You can go there, give some lessons to the students, it’ll be of a great help to us,’ she said.

Sheikh Hasina also said it is not a good gesture just saying anything as one needs to show the process of implementation. ‘I think they should help us to that extent.’

Noting that the government has given utmost importance to the education sector, the Prime Minister said that numerous programmes have been taken to flourish merit, creativity and mind.

She said education is a basic human right of people, and that education is the only tool for building a poverty-free Bangladesh.

Hasina again defended the stance of her government in holding Primary Education Completion (PEC) and Junior School Certificate (JSC) examinations, saying that such examinations will boost the self-confidence of the children before sitting for higher public exams.

About the success of such examinations, the Prime Minister said, the children are doing better in public exams as fear of sitting for examination is being shrugged off.

Pointing out the previous scholarship examination system, she said only a few of the students were selected for the examination and the teachers took very special care of them depriving others.

The Prime Minister hoped that from now on, all hesitation of the parents, guardians, teachers and students about PEC, JSC, JDC and equivalent examinations would be removed forever.

Hasina also elaborated her government’s success in increasing literacy rate, number of students and reduction of dropout as well as various steps to protect the mother language of different small ethnic communities of the country.

In her speech, the Prime Minister also mentioned about BNP-Jamaat’s arson attacks and vandalism during 2013, 2014 and 2015 to unseat the government.

Sheikh Hasina handed over textbooks among the pre-primary, primary, Ebtedayee, secondary, Dakhil and technical students of city’s different educational institutions during the time.

She also handed over new brail textbooks among a number of visually disabled students on the occasion.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mustafizur Rahman, Education Secretary Sohrab Hossain, Primary and Mass Education Secretary Asifuzzaman, Technical and Madrasa Education Secretary Md Alamgir and NCTB Chairman Prof Narayan Chandra Saha were present.

Earlier, Education Minister and the Primary and Mass Educating Minister adorned the Prime Minister with two wraps) painted with Bangla alphabets on the occasion of the textbook distribution.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid will inaugurate the central programme of the ‘National Textbook Festival-2017’ at Azimpur Government Girls School and College in the capital at 9:30am on Sunday.

The government will distribute over 36. 21 crore textbooks among the primary and secondary students of the academic year 2017.

Nearly 4.26 core pre-primary, primary, secondary, Ebtedayee, Dakhil, vocational, SSC vocational, small anthropological group and visually challenged students will get the textbooks free.

The government has been distributing free textbooks since 2010 to lessen the burdens of the parents and encourage students of poor families to continue their studies.