kind.”**3 Nonetheless, because of government restrictions it is a workaround that meets
neither the minimal requirements of access to quality education without discrimination
under international law, nor humanitarian education standards.™4
“The objective in 2018 was to ramp up the number of learning centers, but now the priority
is the quality of education,” a humanitarian official said in February 2019."5 To address the
“lack of standardized and relevant teaching and learning materials,”*** among other
problems, UNICEF spearheaded the creation ofa new informal education program, initially
named the Learning Competency Framework and Approach (LCFA), to which the
government eventually responded with a policy document it called Guidelines for Informal
Education Programming (GIEP).
Developed for UNICEF by Dhaka University and BRAC University, the British Council, and
members of the humanitarian education sector, the informal education program will
comprise five “levels,” which are intended to provide informal education from pre-primary
to the rough equivalent of secondary school.” Although it is not officially recognized as or
equivalent to a curriculum, the informal education program is structured as one: it
includes lesson plans, Burmese language textbooks, and for older children, increased
numbers of subjects and hours of instruction. For children who advance to levels three and
four of the informal program — which have not yet been approved by the government — the
number of subjects should increase to include science and history. If Bangladesh
approves these levels, the increase in subjects will also necessarily require the number of
“contact hours” between students and instructors to increase as well. This change would
limit the learning centers offering these levels to two shifts per day rather than three and
as a result each center will be able to accommodate fewer students.*8 The humanitarian
groups in the education sector plan to cluster learning centers together
to compensate.
113 UNICEF, Beyond Survival: Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh Want to Learn, p. 11.
114 See, e.g., Inter-Agency Network on Education in Emergencies, “Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness,
Response, Recovery,” 2012, p. 78,
https://inee.org/system/files/resources/INEE_Minimum_Standards_Handbook_2010%28HSP%29_EN.pdf (accessed
September 4, 2019).
145 Human
Rights Watch interview, senior humanitarian agency official, Cox’s Bazar, February 16, 2019.
116 3019 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Emergency, January-December, p. 35.
“17 The first four levels are meant to be equivalent to pre-primary through grade 8. UNICEF, “Humanitarian Action for Children:
Bangladesh,” January 2019, p. 3, https://www.unicef.org/appeals/files/2019-HAC-Bangladesh(2).pdf (accessed June 3,
2019).
118 Human Rights Watch interviews, senior humanitarian agency official, February 16, 2019; Bangladeshi INGO education
specialist, Cox’s Bazar, February 18, 2019.
“ARE WE HUMAN?”
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