national education systems and programmes under similar conditions to local children”
during both the emergency and longer-term humanitarian responses.1*
More than two years after the Myanmar military attacks of August 2017, the only education
that the government and humanitarian sector have made available to Rohingya refugee
children in Bangladesh is in learning centers that are only intended for children up to the
age of 14.182 This age restriction is due to government policy, a senior humanitarian official
said, but added, “I’m not sure where the age restriction came from — if they [the
government] are worried about integration [of refugees], why only 4 to 142” In any case, he
added, “we have to work on children 15 to 18. They are idle in the camp, and extremely
vulnerable to problematic activities. Yaba trafficking [an artificial psychotropic drug] is
huge in the camp. And human trafficking.”*83
The result of the lack of secondary-level education is a precipitous decline in enrollment at
learning centers among children in that age range. A factsheet compiled from information
provided the humanitarian groups working in the education sector reported that as of July
28, 2019 the sector was delivering education to 296,000 out of a target of 393,000
Rohingya children ages 3-18, but just 9,000 of these children were ages 15 — 18, out ofa
target of 45,000 children in that age group.*4 Of the 99 Rohingya children Human Rights
Watch interviewed in February 2019, most of the 65 who attended learning centers were
between the ages of 6 to 12. Abdul Ayas, 11, who was in class 7 before his family fled from
Myanmar, said he was not attending a learning center because “it’s not the right standard
of education. | want to go to high school and university.”185
The government of Bangladesh has only approved the first two levels of the GIEP, but even
if all five levels were approved and rolled out promptly, they are only intended to comprise
the equivalent of pre-primary through around class 10, without accreditation, the
opportunity to take examinations, or continue in school. Secondary education in
181 UNHCR, “Education emergency standard,” https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/53852/education-emergency-standard,
accessed September 3, 2019. Bullet points in original.
182 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis, March - December 2018, p. 60,
https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/JRP%20for%2o0Rohingya%2oHumanitarian%2o0Crisis%20%20FOR%20DISTRIBUTION.PDF (accessed September 12, 2019).
183 Human Rights Watch interview, senior humanitarian official, Cox’s Bazar, February 17, 2019.
184 Cox’s Bazar Education Sector, “Education Sector: Dashboard and 5W Analysis on July 28, 2019,”
https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/bangladesh/document/education-sector-dashboard-and-5wanalysison-28-july-2019 (accessed September 17, 2019).
185 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Ayas, Cox’s Bazar, February 10, 2019.
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | DECEMBER 2019