Educating Myanmar’s youngest refugees

SofiaBegum is a case study in the power of hope. Three months ago, armedvigilantes attacked the six-year-old’s village in Myanmar’s RakhineState. Sofia saw neighbours killed, an uncle wounded by gunfire, and herhome razed.Miraculously, Sofia, her parents, and two youngerbrothers survived. After an arduous four-day journey that includedevading militias and making a perilous river crossing, they reachedsafety in neighbouring Bangladesh. “Now I want to be back in school,”Sofia tells me. “I miss reading and playing with my friends; I want tobe a doctor.”Sofia’s father is even more emphatic about hisdaughter’s future. “Without learning, what chance will my children havefor a better life?” he asks. “They need to be in school.”If only the international community shared that view.TheRohingya refugee crisis is also an education crisis. More than 655,000people, some two-thirds of Myanmar’s total Rohingya population, havefled to Bangladesh seeking sanctuary from the killing, rape, burning,and looting in Rakhine State. Yet, although some 60% of the displacedare children, education provision for Myanmar’s youngest refugeesremains woefully insufficient. Few are in school, and there is noco-ordinated plan for universal education.The scale of the crisisand the speed with which it has unfolded is part of the problem. In thespan of just a few months, a population the size of Boston flooded intosoutheast Bangladesh, one of the poorest areas of a very poor country.The new refugee encampments are among the most densely populated placeson Earth, and inhabitants are desperate for shelter, nutrition,healthcare, clean water, and sanitation. Education is just one of themany needs competing for a dearth of international aid.Politicalobstacles also loom large. The government of Bangladesh has demonstratedextraordinary generosity in responding to the crisis, providing land,keeping borders open, and helping to build new settlements. PrimeMinister Sheikh Hasina is rightly regarded as a global leader on refugeeresponse.But the government also insists that the Rohingya areguests, and must return to Myanmar. The two countries’ foreign ministerssigned an agreement in November calling for the “safe and voluntary”repatriation of refugees to begin early this year. The Bangladeshigovernment worries that providing education could be interpreted as amove toward granting refugees permanent residency. Humanitarian agenciesare left tinkering at the margins of education provision through afragmented patchwork of small-scale projects.After being deniedcitizenship in Myanmar, an entire generation of Rohingya is now beingdenied the right to education. Former British prime minister GordonBrown, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, haschallenged the generalised neglect of schooling in humanitarianemergencies. In the case of the Rohingya crisis, insufficient fundinghas been compounded by wider failures by humanitarian agencies,including weak coordination, turf battles, and differences over whichcurriculum should be used – an apparently esoteric issue that has becomeentangled with questions about Rohingya children’s future status.Thisis a prescription for a future without hope. The Rohingya children inBangladesh are coping not just with displacement, but also with trauma.Getting children into a safe learning environment could help to restore asense of normality, and provide the support they need to process theirexperiences. It could also help inculcate values of tolerance, respect,and peaceful conflict resolution.Denying refugee children aneducation will deprive them of these benefits and the skills they willneed to rebuild their lives, robbing them of hope for the future andincreasing the risk of recruitment by extremist groups. The growingnumber of madrassas springing up in refugee settlements will magnifiedthese risks. These Islamic religious schools, which lack oversight,could become vehicles for transmitting extremist views, as they haveelsewhere.The starting point for any strategy on education has to bea practical recognition that an early solution of the crisis isunlikely. Given the ferocity of the attacks on the Rohingya, and thefailure of Myanmar’s leaders to provide credible security guarantees,few refugees will voluntarily return to Myanmar anytime soon. The worldcannot stand by and watch as Rohingya children are punished twice –first by the failure of their government to protect them from systematichuman rights abuse, and then by a lack of schooling. Education is aright to which even the displaced are entitled. Arguing about futureresidency status is a distraction. Low-cost, temporary schools can bemade from bamboo, with lessons delivered by refugee teachers equippedwith Burmese-language material. None of this would imply permanentresidency in Bangladesh. What it would do is restore the hope that comeswith education.The international community should act immediately –and decisively – to deliver universal education for Rohingya children.What is needed is a single, well-coordinated plan of action aimed atgetting all children into school in the first half of 2018. In theinterests of defusing social tensions, that plan should extend beyondthe refugee settlements to host communities.Financing is available.The World Bank has created a $2 billion fund to provide rapid support tocountries hosting large refugee populations. Now is the time to use it.Money from multilateral organizations, like the Global Partnership forEducation and Education Cannot Wait, should also be deployed. Bilateraldonors could do more as well. Children like Sofia have sufferedenough. They deserve our best effort to protect their right to aneducation. We must not let them down. – Project Syndicate* Kevin Watkins is CEO of Save the Children UK.