Govt to fund young talents to attend UN conference: Mahdi Amin

Prime Minister’s Adviser for Education and Primary and Mass Education Mahdi Amin today (16 October) said the government will provide all-out support to send the best young talents selected through national level competitions to the international conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

“After selecting the best young talents through national competitions, the government would send them to the international conference at the United Nations Headquarters to develop their talents, creativity and leadership skills,” he said while inaugurating the ‘Bangladesh Youth Model United Nations 2026’ at the LD Hall of the Jatiya Sangsad.

Future Bangladesh, a youth organisation, organised the two-day conference where students from schools, colleges and universities across the country were scheduled to take part in mock debates on national and global policy issues.

Mahdi Amin, also Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) spokesperson, said special initiatives were being taken to provide students with opportunities to engage in international platforms.

“A national competition will be organised across the country, with young people from every school, college and university participating. The ultimate winners will be sent, with government funding, to an international conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York so that they can represent the red and green flag of Bangladesh on the global stage,” he said.

The adviser said that the government would extend all necessary cooperation to formally implement the initiative from next year under the prime minister’s directive.

He also said the prime minister had adopted a unique triangular approach to developing students’ talent and creativity through education, culture and sports.

Under the initiative, government patronage would continue for talent-development activities and competitions across the country, including mathematics and physics Olympiads, Natut Kuri, Quran recitation and hifz competitions, debates and quizzes, he added.

Recalling his student life, Mahdi Amin said he had participated in Model United Nations in 2007 while studying at Baruch College of the City University of New York and visited the UN Headquarters as a representative of the college.

The adviser said young people had played a leading role in every major turning point in Bangladesh’s history, from the Language Movement of 1952 and the Liberation War of 1971 to the anti-autocracy movement of the 1990s and the 2024 July Uprising, shedding blood to pave the way for freedom.

The present government was committed to creating opportunities for young people to realize their potential based solely on merit, competence, integrity, and justice, without consideration of any particular political identity, he added.