government school before fleeing Myanmar to the refugee camps, voiced a common complaint: “my learning center only teaches A-B-C-D, but | wish | could move on, and pass class 10.”13 Children who attended school in Myanmar described their frustration at not being able to build on what they had learned, but having to start over in schools that offered only basic instruction, and where there was no progression of knowledge and skills. Esha Ahmed, a 13-year-old who had attended class 4 at a public school in Myanmar, said “There is no point going to the learning center here because we were already more advanced [in our study in Myanmar].”*%4 Faisal, a 20-year-old instructor at a learning center, said that children ages 4 to 8 “are eager to come to the learning centers because they find a playground,” but that older children who had gone to school in Rakhine state “could not fulfil their thirst for education” and “stop coming to the learning center after a few days.”*°5 Mohamad Amin, 20, who began working as a Burmese and math instructor at a learning center in 2018, said his students initially included “lots of kids who used to attend Burmese schools [before fleeing], but after attending a few classes some of them did not come anymore.”1°6 Children with school experience in Myanmar were also discouraged by learning centers’ failure to group children according to their previous academic experience. Mohamad Zohar, 14, had been in class 6 in Rakhine state, and had also been out of school since coming to Bangladesh. “There are very little kids, they are just playing in the learning centers.” He wants to be a math teacher, but currently, “I don’t do anything.”*°7 Rumana, a Bangladeshi national teaching in a learning center in the camps, said: They need to go somewhere for learning, but these age groups cannot be incorporated with the [younger] children. So, suppose | am teaching numbers in the math class, students who are already familiar with course work lose their concentration. But if| start teaching them mathematical operations, the other children, who don’t even know about numbers, start 103 Human Rights Watch interviews with Azida, Cox’s Bazar, February 14, 2019. 104 Human Rights Watch interview with Esha Ahmed, Cox’s Bazar, February 10, 2019. 105 Human Rights Watch interview with Faisal, Cox’s Bazar, February 6, 2019. 106 Human Rights Watch interview with Mohamad Amin, Cox’s Bazar, February 5, 2019. 107 Human Rights Watch interview with Mohamad Zohar, Cox’s Bazar, February 10, 2019. “ARE WE HUMAN?” 36