Rohingya children in Rakhine State suffer what the Norwegian Refugee Council terms “full
deprivation” of education.25 Student-to-teacher ratios in schools in one majority-Rohingya
township are 123:1.26 Basic measurements of access to education are far worse for
Rohingya than the national average.27 One survey found that only 54 percent of Rohingya
children had completed one year of school in Myanmar, in contrast to 92 percent of
children from another ethnic group, the Rakhine, who are Buddhist and officially
recognized as a national ethnic group.?8 Only 12 percent of Rohingya boys, and just 6
percent of girls completed grade 5, compared to more than 50 percent of
Rakhine children.29
Rohingya children face the obstacle that instruction is in Burmese, a second or third
language.3° As few as 27 percent of Rohingya are literate in Burmese.3+
Rohingya children also faced discrimination at government schools in Rakhine State:
teachers at these schools humiliated Rohingya children by forcing them to sit at the back
of the classroom or a Separate room, away from students of other ethnicities, and told
them they “do not have any country.”32 Rohingya girls face additional obstacles to
education as they grow older, due to parents’ fears for their safety en route to schools.33
25 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with a former co-lead of the Cox’s Bazar education sector, September 25, 2018.
26 Amnesty International, “Caged Without a Roof”: Apartheid in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, p. 69,
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA1674842017ENGLISH.PDF (accessed June 2, 2019).
27 The national average student-teacher ratio at primary schools is 28 to 1, 25 percent of children drop out of primary school,
and literacy rates are around 93 percent. UNDP, 2016 Human Development Report, Table 9, “Educational Achievements,” p.
232, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf (accessed June 1, 2019).
28 Center for Diversity and National Harmony, Rakhine State Needs Assessment, September 2015, p. 95,
https://www.themimu.info/sites/themimu.info/files/documents/Report_Rakhine_State_Needs_Assessment.pdf (accessed
June 13, 2019).
29 Cox’s Bazar Education Sector, Joint Education Needs Assessment: Rohingya Refugee in Cox’s Bazar, p. 17,
https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/cxb_jena_assessme
nt_report-180607.pdf; Internews, Information Needs Assessment Cox’s Bazar — Bangladesh, November 2018, p. 17,
https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/assessments/internews_coxs_bazar_
publication_web.pdf; International Rescue Committee, Gender-Based Violence Among Displaced Communities in Sittwe
Township, Rakhine State, 2016, p. 17,
https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/IRC%20GBV%20KAP%202016.pdf (accessed June 2, 2019).
3° Joint Education Sector Needs Assessment, North Rakhine State, Myanmar, November 2015, p. 17.
31 Internews, Information Needs Assessment Cox’s Bazar — Bangladesh, November 2018, p. 15.
3? Report of the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, September 17, 2018,
A/HRC/39/CRP.2, p. 133, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM-Myanmar/A_HRC_39_CRP.2.pdf
(accessed July 22, 2019).
33 Joint Education Sector Needs Assessment, North Rakhine State, Myanmar, November 2015, p. 18.
“ARE WE HUMAN?”
22