Discrepancies in Hours of Instruction Although the informal education program will increase the number of hours of instruction received by Rohingya children in learning centers to a level equivalent to some Bangladeshi children, it will also perpetuate the discrepancy with others. Before the informal education program was introduced, all classes in the learning centers lasted for just two hours per day." Under the informal program, children in the first two levels — intended to be equivalent to kindergarten through the third year of primary school — will attend learning centers for 2.25 hours per day, for a total of 598 hours annually.*2° The informal program offers Rohingya children about the same number of “contact hours” that Bangladeshi children receive in the first two years, if they attend government elementary schools that operate on two shifts. The majority of government-run primary schools in Bangladesh, about 82 percent, operate on a two-shift schedule.*2* But Bangladeshi children at “one shift” schools attend them for 919 hours annually — 54 percent more time at school than the informal education program offers Rohingya children. In levels 3 and 4, if and when they are approved by the government, Rohingya children will attend learning centers for to 3.25 hours per day, or 854 hours annually. This is about 65 hours more per year than Bangladeshi children receive at two-shift government schools, but at single shift schools, they receive 1,428 hours — 44 percent more than their Rohingya peers. At one secondary school in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladeshi students in classes 6 to 10 go to school from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., with no break — or 6 hours of school per day, compared to 3.25 hours for Rohingya children.122 Concerns over Quality Education experts with international NGOs operating in Cox’s Bazar have raised serious concerns about the quality of the informal curriculum.*23 One education official at an INGO 119 In Myanmar, primary education in classes 1 through 3 lasted from 7 to 10:30 a.m., according to two Rohingya refugees who were formerly teachers in government schools that ran on multiple “shifts” in different villages in Rakhine state. Human Rights Watch interviews in Cox’s Bazar with Dil Mohamed, February 11, and Salah Uddin, February 14, 2019. 120 Cox’s Bazar Education Sector, “Contact hours / Shift Planning Proposal,” [no date], p.3, https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rjlgtyifhvlrag1/AACezaVfWek1t7uGB8iyjvéfra?dl=o&preview=Contact+time+and+shift+planinin g+guide+_Eng.pdf (accessed July 15, 2019). 121 Letter from UNICEF Bangladesh to Human Rights Watch, December 1, 2019. 122 Human Rights Watch interviews, staff at Kashemia High School, Balukhali, Cox’s Bazar, February 14 and 15, 2019. 123 At the time of the interviews, in February 2019, the GIEP was still referred to as the Learning Competency Framework and Approach (LCFA). 39 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | DECEMBER 2019