by Grace Chew Min Hwei
How was school? What did you learn in class today? Have you done your homework? These are questions familiar to the lexicon of many parents around the world. Not so for the families of Rohingya muslims in Bangladesh. Today, there are almost 400,000 Rohingya refugee children living in Bangladesh who have been deliberately denied their right to education. Children representing futures. Futures now at risk.
The battle between the Rohingya people and Myanmar has been a long-standing, hazardously complicated one which continues to result in bloodshed, brutality and military crackdowns in Myanmar today. The conflict culminated in the 2015 Rohingya Refugee Crisis, where the world saw a mass exodus of Rohingya out of Myanmar, with many Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. As of 2018, there were approximately 1.1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, as reported by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in September of that year.
The plight of Rohingya refugee children has increasingly come into the spotlight, as the Bangladeshi government has taken measures to block off their education. Published on 3 December 2019, the Human Rights Watch paper titled “‘Are We Not Human?’: Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh” reports on the issue, detailing how the government has banned formal education programmes from being conducted by humanitarian groups and NGOs. Teaching of the Bengali language and Bangladesh curriculum is also forbidden, while a significant number of Rohingya children which had previously managed discreet entry into local schools have been expelled and left without recourse.
The Bangladeshi Government’s motive? Preventing Integration.
While humanitarian groups continue striving to provide informal curriculums education programmes, slow approval by Bangladeshi officials has impeded their efforts and left them entangled in a spaghetti bowl of red tape. Groups such as UNICEF and Children on the Edge have done commendable work in setting up education centres in the border camps, but there are still many children who at best receive informal education in dilapidated conditions, and at worst receive no education at all.
Needless to say, the Bangladeshi Government has come under fire for its actions. Think about it: the government, an authoritative body which represents public interest and service, refusing education for children and stripping them of a basic right. Regardless of who the children are and where they come from, the very thought is outrageous.
Nonetheless, the Bangladeshi government believes that formal education is unnecessary for the Rohingya children as they will soon be repatriated back to Myanmar (even though there is little hope for such repatriation any time soon). To them, such an extreme action is needed to prevent the Rohingya children from integrating into the Bangladeshi community. They maintain a strong stance that Bangladesh’s provision of refuge for the Rohingya is short-term. Therefore, the Bangladeshi Government’s primary concern is that offering education to the refugee children and settling them into schools will incentivise the Rohingya to treat Bangladesh as a more permanent refuge.
Bangladesh’s concerns are real; that, I will not deny. However, wilfully depriving children of their fundamental right to education is, on many levels, wrong in a very big way. First and foremost, the act of blocking education reflects Bangladesh’s blatant disregard for their own national obligations. It is no secret that Bangladesh publicly adopted the Global Refugee Compact in 2018, which explicitly pushes for refugee children to be assimilated into education systems of the host country. On top of that, Bangladesh ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which secured the right to education for all children.
When questioned by CNN on the lack of education for refugee children, Bangladeshi Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, Md. Mahbub Alam Talukder quickly came to the government’s defence, stating that:
“We have given them shelter and we are taking care of them. We are taking care of them properly. There is no sort of negligence”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/03/asia/rohingya-children-denied-education-report-intl-hnk/index.html
Non-answers like these attempt to divert attention away from the pressing issue at hand, and while Bangladesh deserves praise for opening its borders to Rohingya and offering shelter, its provision of refuge alone cannot and should not be used as an excuse for depriving rights which are fundamental.
The far-reaching benefits of Education
“Bangladesh wants to see us a good community… but if they block our education, how can we be?”
15-year-old, Mohammed Yunus, speaking to Reuters
Rather than being an effective block to integration, banning access to education for Rohingya children could also backfire in the form of the Rohingya’s increased dependence on the Bangladeshi government. Education is an irreplaceable piece of a child’s life. It has always been valued as a tool which is essential in breaking out of generations of poverty, as it empowers children and has the potential to lead to tremendous social, economic and human development.
As put forth by the Human Rights Watch report, education would achieve a multiplier effect of equipping and developing the Rohingya children, enabling them “to become self-sufficient adults who contribute to economic growth, whether in Bangladesh or Myanmar”. This would in turn contribute to “long term peace and social cohesion”. Suppressing the right to education is causing irreversible harm not only to the children, but also to the Bangladeshi government itself. By stifling the Rohingya children’s right to learn, grow and be self-sufficient, the Bangladeshi government is likely to face greater burdens in the future as the Rohingya community grow more and more dependent on them to pull them out of their already precarious position.
“We have a saying: if you want to destroy a community you don’t have to kill the people, just prevent them from studying,”
Rohingya teacher Mohamed A, speaking to Human Rights Watch
They have been already been called the lost generation. For the community to survive, education cannot be withheld. All children need education. The Bangladeshi children do. The Rohingya children do. And not just any education. They need formal, quality education. This makes good teachers and basic functioning facilities essential. This will in no way be easy to achieve, but clearing the obstacle to education would undoubtedly create a workable starting point. I sincerely hope the Bangladeshi government will start respecting the Rohingya children’s basic right to education and not miss the wood for the trees. Futures are at risk and there is no time to lose.
