Bangladesh has performed better than other developing countries in reducing child labour through expanding primary and non-formal education, said speakers at a seminar Thursday, reports bdnews24.com.

They also called for increasing the budget for education which can work as an important instrument for eliminating child labour.

"Bangladesh made impressive progress in terms of child labour as 90 percent of its children are going to schools," Nabendra Dahal, chief of Unicef's education
section, told a seminar marking World Day Against Child Labour (June12) at Hotel Sheraton.

"Though Bangladesh has made impressive progress compared with other developing countries, there is much room for improvement," Dahal said.

He said Bangladesh spent 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product on the education sector, and the allocation should be increased.

The theme of this year's World Day Against Child Labour is: 'Education: the right response to child labour'.

"Child labour is not a problem, rather a result of many problems. Education is the escape route from child labour," CK Hyder, the secretary-general of Bangladesh
Employers' Federation, told the seminar.

Unesco director and representative in Bangladesh Malama Meleisea also praised Bangladesh's achievements in reducing child labour, reiterating that education was
the best way to eliminate child labour.

The International Labour Organisation's director in Dhaka, Panudda Boonpala said more than 70 million children are not enrolled in primary schools across the globe.

In Bangladesh, approximately 8.6 million children were not attending schools, she said.
Bangladesh has made primary education mandatory since 1991. Both government and non-government organisations have been running different projects to
educate 'drop-out' children.

Thursday's seminar was jointly organised by the ministry of labour and employment, the ministry of primary and mass education, ILO, Unesco and Unicef.

Acting labour and employment secretary Mahfuzul Haque and primary and mass education secretary M Mosharraf Hossain addressed the technical session.

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