Bangladesh, Aug. 11 -- High student dropout rates and shortcomings in education quality threaten to weaken Bangladesh's demographic dividend and slow progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Haque Milon has warned.

Speaking at a session of a three-day conference in Dhaka on a five-year strategic framework for achieving the SDGs, Milon said large numbers of students were being lost at different stages of the education system, with many failing to progress from primary to secondary, higher secondary and eventually university education.

"System loss in the power sector causes economic losses, but system loss in education is more dangerous for the nation," he said, stressing the need to tran...