By Sumi Khan

Dhaka, Jul 28 (IANS): The Bangladesh Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved the draft of the "Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board Act, 2020" at a meeting here.

Hasina joined the virtual meeting on Monday from her official residence 'Ganabhaban' while ministers and secretaries joined the meet from the Bangladesh Secretariat through a video conference.

The proposed law made some amendments to the existing Madrasah Education Ordinance, 1978 to make it time-befitting in accordance with the Supreme Court order that had declared all the military period laws illegal.

The draft law incorporated an article 28 to give the Madrasah Education Board's prior activities under the 1978 ordinance legal protection so that none of its earlier activity can be challenged as ‘illegal', said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam.

Besides, the cabinet approved a draft of an agreement to be signed between the government of Bangladesh and the Lumbini Development Trust to set up a Buddhist Temple at Lumbini in Nepal with the finance of Bangladesh.

 Following the meeting on Monday, Anwarul Islam in a news briefing at his Secretariat office said: "The cabinet today give its final consent to the draft of the Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board Act, 2020."

Two major changes have been made to the proposed law, he said, adding that the draft has suggested making the board employees as 'public servants' and fixing their retirement age at 60 likewise other education boards.

The meeting was apprised of joining the 76th assembly of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific by a high-level Bangladesh delegation led by the Prime Minister through a video conference on May 21 last.