Education is a human right. So they [Rohingya children] should have
learning. But in the camps, our prime minister gave them shelter for
humanitarian reasons. It is not possible to provide them with an
educational institution inside the camps. But they should have a chance.
We should do our level best to provide them opportunities. If the
international community takes the initiative to repatriate them to their own
land, good. Otherwise we will have a lot of problems. Even if they stay here
for 20, 30 or 4o years, or more, they will not be Bangladeshi. They see
themselves as refugees.
Initial Humanitarian Education Response
The humanitarian groups working in the education sector, led by UNICEF, responded to the
government’s restrictions by establishing “learning centers” rather than schools, staffed
with “volunteer facilitators” rather than teachers — “we have to be very careful with
wording,” a humanitarian official said.93 Children ages 4 to 14 can enroll at the learning
centers, each of which can teach one class of 30 to 40 children at a time. Each learning
center is staffed by one Rohingya refugee, who teaches Burmese language and life skills,
and one Bangladeshi national, who taught mathematics and English.
Royes, a 30-year-old former teacher from Rakhine State who works as a learning center
instructor, described a typical work-day: to increase the number of students who attend
their center, he and his Bangladeshi co-instructor teach three shifts per day, from 9 to 11
a.m., 11:30 to 1:30 p.m., and 2:10 to 4:10 p.m., six days a week. Each shift includes four,
25-minute lessons, with a break after each. Some 4o children are enrolled in each shift,
but actual attendance varied.
Lack of a Formal Curriculum for All Grades
When asked about what was missing from the education offered at learning centers,
children and Rohingya instructors most often pointed to the lack ofa curriculum—lessons
that build on previous skills and knowledge and add new subject areas as the student
progresses. Until early 2019, the learning centers only taught basic-level mathematics,
92 Human Rights Watch interview, district education official, Cox’s Bazar, February 17, 2019.
93 Human Rights Watch interview, senior humanitarian agency official, Cox’s Bazar, February 17, 2019.
94 Human Rights Watch interview with Royes Uddin, learning center instructor, Cox’s Bazar, February 5, 2019.
“ARE WE HUMAN?”
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