Rohingya children are deprived of basic education, recent reports reveal

About half of the Rohingya children in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, are growing up without any access to a minimum education facility, according to a recent report. (AFP)

• The education facilities provided by UN and NGO-run schools are still inadequate and offer only “informal education”
• At present, NGOs have prepared a curriculum by their own experts and taken approval from the UN children's fund UNICEF

DHAKA: About half of the Rohingya children in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, are growing up without any access to a minimum education facility, according to the latest report of Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), which was issued last week. It says 47 percent of Rohingya children under the age group of 3-14 don’t go to any learning center, while 98 percent of youth aged 14-24 are out of the education facility.
The education facilities provided by UN and NGO-run schools are still inadequate and offer only “informal education,” said Areez Rahman, spokesperson of BRAC (the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), the world’s largest non-governmental organization. The UN and NGO-run learning centers offer a little elementary education that provides only basic knowledge on Burmese language, English and mathematics. Rahman said there is no “unified curriculum” for all the learning centers in the refugee camp run by a different NGO.
At present, NGOs have prepared a curriculum by their own experts and taken approval from the UN children's fund UNICEF.
BRAC alone is running 365 learning centers in the Rohingya camps which cover about 30,000 students from the age of four to 14. “In our schools we are focusing on early-grade learning, basic literacy, numeracy, life-saving information, psycho-social support and life skills for the children in the camps,” Rahman told Arab News.
According to UNICEF, about 1,000 learning centers are providing education to the Rohingya children.
Alastair Lawson Tancred, UNICEF spokesperson in Cox’s Bazar, says there is no curriculum at present, “although UNICEF is working with the government to implement what is known as a Learning Competency Framework (LCF). Children aged between six and 14 receive an informal education at the learning centers, but children older than that currently only have access to adolescent clubs.
“However, efforts are now being made to address this so that learning centers can also be used by adolescent children,” Tancred added.
The urge of providing a better education to the Rohingya children is increasing every day. “We have already formed an LCF to upgrade the curriculum and the groundwork in this regard is completed. We are expecting to launch this curriculum from February next year after getting approval from the government authority,” said Mortuza Ahmed, sector information manager at ISCG. He said this new curriculum will be equivalent to fourth-grade primary education.
“Initially the Bangladesh government focused on the food, accommodation and health priorities of the refugees. Since their status in Bangladesh is yet to be settled and as Myanmar nationals they are not allowed to be taught in Bangle, our government is now working on a sustainable curriculum for these Rohingya children,” said Mohammad Shafiul Alam, primary education officer in Cox’s Bazar. "Our authority is closely working with UNICEF and UNHCR in this regard," he said.
The World Bank has approved a grant of $25 million to enhance the education facilities for the Rohingya children in Cox’s Bazar. In a statement on Saturday it said the additional financing on grant terms expands an existing project to help about 350,000 Rohingya children and adolescents to get a basic education at learning centers.
Qimiao Fan, World Bank country director for Bangladesh, said that without learning life skills and basic education, these Rohingya children can become a lost generation.
“In addition to providing access to learning opportunities, the grant will support psycho-social activities to help Rohingya children recover from shocks and to prevent exploitation. The grant will especially focus on girls, who are often victims of gender-based violence,” Fan says.
According to the WB statement, the financing, part of up to $480 million announced by the World Bank in June, will help establish 1,000 new learning centers and support about 500 existing ones in the camp areas. In addition, about 2,000 teachers and instructors will be recruited and trained at about 100 teacher training facilities, the World Bank said.