Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has appreciated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her support building a women’s dormitory in the Islamic University of Technology (IUT) campus in Gazipur.
“I believe that OIC would bring in necessary assistance for expansion and success of this new initiative (women’s dormitory) by arranging funding for the second phase of the building project,” he said while addressing IUT’s Freshers’ Reception Ceremony virtually.
Welcoming students from different OIC members to the IUT, the foreign minister lauded the university authority as it has been enrolling female students from the 2016-17 academic session with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s encouragement.
He recalled that Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s historic participation in the 2nd OIC Summit in 1974 brought Bangladesh into the fold of global Islamic platform as a sequel of which the IUT, a subsidiary organ of the OIC emerged in Bangladesh within a few years.
“He (Bangabandhu) believed that this organization (OIC) should be the collective voice of Muslim World and it would work to promote international peace and harmony among various countries of the world,” Momen said.
At the time of establishment, he said the main objective of IUT was to help generally in human resources development in member states of the OIC, particularly in different fields of science and engineering education.
“IUT is continuously working to fulfill its mission by producing quality graduates where majority of them are now working in the member states of the OIC and attached in the enhancement of socioeconomic development of the Muslim Ummah,” he said.
Terming the students and youth as the agents of change, Dr Momen urged the freshers to pursue knowledge and science, and work for a glorious future of the Ummah.
Saying that the world is passing through a period of rapid transformation in the fast- changing world of many challenges, he said, each country has its own way of coming to terms with this change.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wants to approach this change through “People’s Empowerment” and developing the agents of change.
“This empowerment comes from skills, knowledge and technology. That is what the IUT is contributing to and its students are striving for,” he said.
That is what the great scholars and scientists in Islam pursued in the past and gave the Muslim Ummah a glorious heritage. It is therefore, the students and the youth who are the agents of change to pursue knowledge and science, and work for a glorious future of the Ummah.
Noting that the world is passing through an unprecedented time due to the Covid-19 pandemic the minister urged the students to follow the health directives while continuing their perusal of knowledge so that when the right time comes, they can come forward as an asset to humanity.
OIC’s Assistant Secretary General for Science and Technology ambassador Askar Mussinov, IUT’s chief patron and Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr. Omar Jah were present.
