Education and Human Rights - Issues and Problems of Rohingya Children in Bangladesh — The Association Specialists

Education and Human Rights - Issues and Problems of Rohingya Children in Bangladesh (20087)

Tania Hossain 1
  1. Waseda University, Tokyo, TOKYO, Japan

Rohingya in Myanmar is one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. In August 2017 and early May 2018, about 713,000 Rohingyas arrived in Bangladesh because of the genocide. Rohingya children are not allowed to enter the local schools and face educational and social discrimination. The government of Bangladesh mentioned that Rohingya people in Bangladesh should get their education in their mother tongue, mostly Burmese. In Bangladesh, most public schools use Bengali as a medium of instruction and teach English as one of the compulsory subjects. All these languages have different language scripts.

The purpose of this research is to determine the government is policies to provide education to Rohingya children. What are the main problems of this policy? And to find out what would be the best policy for Rohingya children. To find the answer to the research questions, three types of data are examined: (1) archives and documents, (2) non-participatory classroom observations, and (3) interviews with the fundamental policy planners.

UN Special Rapporteur mentioned that Rohingya would not return to their country soon. Based on the data examined in this article, several conclusions are reached.  First, suppose the Rohingyas are educated in their language, which is not Bangla. In that case, Bangladesh will get a huge number of unskilled population who will not be able to work in Bangladesh because of their language and education reasons. Second, Education seems to create class divisions in the society. Educational intervention for refugee children and young people thus must meet appropriate standards of educational opportunities considering possible intersectionality, including gender, access, quality, curriculum, relevance, and language. Unfortunately, Rohingya children in Bangladesh are not enjoying that right. This research will provide some solutions to the present problems.