Ask any of the 18,000 Rohingya youth at two government-run refugee camps in Bangladesh what they want most, and the answer is unanimous: education. “Our future is blind without education,” says Sayed Alam, a lifelong resident of Kutupalong camp, 300 km southeast of Dhaka, one of two official camps set up to house 28,000 documented Rohingya refugees. “Without a proper education I’m nothing,” says the 17-year-old.
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Apart from primary education, members of this Muslim and linguistic minority who fled Myanmar en masse starting in 1991, have little hope of going any further. Although under Article 22 of the International Refugee Convention, host states are obliged to accord treatment as favourable as possible with respect to education other than elementary education, Bangladesh is not a signatory to the convention. The Bangladesh government does not permit secondary schools in the camps, so children like Sayed have no choice but to study on their own at home — if at all.
Moreover since they are officially barred from leaving the camps, formal education comes to a halt for Rohingya youth around the age of 12, presenting a major dilemma for those struggling to assist them. “Without this community receiving education and opportunity, it’s a generation lost,” says Arjun Jain, a Dhaka-based senior protection officer of the UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR).
Primary schooling was informally allowed in the camps in 1999, but it was not until 2008 that it was formalised. With support from the UN Children’s Fund and the NGO Training and Management International, some 21 primary schools now operate in the camps, including 11 in Kutupalong and 10 at Nayapara, employing more than 150 teachers, half of whom are also refugees. Of the more than 9,000 students currently enroled, close to half are girls, with attendance of around 80 percent. But despite these successes, advocating anything beyond primary school in the camps remains problematic.
The UN joint assessment “strongly supported continued advocacy for access to higher grades to be made available”. However, implementing such a recommendation creates a dilemma. Anti-Rohingya sentiment within surrounding communities, many of which lack basic services as well, is already high, so providing assistance to those inside the camp without taking on board the needs outside would be a mistake, aid workers warn.
On their part, Bangladeshi authorities insist any further assistance to the Rohingya — documented or otherwise — would also serve as a magnet for Rohingya across the border, and the authorities are ill-prepared to address any new influx from Myanmar. Since mid 1992, UNHCR has not been permitted to register newly arrived refugees. According to a report earlier this year by Médecins Sans Frontières, more than 200,000 undocumented Rohingya struggle to survive — unrecognised and largely unassisted — in towns and villages of the area.
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)