Any teacher found involved in helping cheating or negligent in duty will be punished, he told a big gathering of high school teachers and education officials from Kushtia, Chuadanga and Meherpur districts, held at the Lalon Academy here on Friday.

The meeting discussed possible steps to eliminate cheating in the coming HSC (Higher Secondary Certificate) examination.

Helping students to copy in examination is a serious crime as are committed by criminals. So they deserve the same punishment given to criminals, he said.

Cheating has been greatly curbed. This must be totally eliminated, which needs cooperation of all teachers and officials, Milon said.

"We must win the war to build a good education system and a generation of well educated people.

"We want to keep up the success achieved in the past several years. Everything will be done for this"

Milon also warned that action would be taken against any school or college doing bad result.

At the meeting, Milon asked seven headmasters in Daulatpur upazila to explain why any student could not pass SSC examination from their schools last year.

He teachers apologised publicly and promised to take steps to improve their performance.

Milon said the government spends Tk 150 crore every month on salary of high school teachers and so negligence will not be tolerated.

With Jessore Education Board Chairmen ABM Sattar in the chair, the meeting was also addressed by, among others, its Controller Amirul Alam Khan, Kushtia Deputy Commissioner Jamal A Naser Choudhury, Kushtia Police Superintendent Sahabuddin Khan, Bangladesh Teachers Association President Kazi Abdur Razzak, Kushtia Government College Principal Mozibur Rahman, Islamia College Principle Alhaj AFM, Najmus Salehin and Kushtia Ali Madrasha Principal Yakub Ali.