NEWAGE
Aug 18,2019Opinion
THE Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh have been in a survival state, especially since 2017 — when the latest large-scale spate of violence against and persecution of them by Myanmar’s military broke out in their native land of Rakhine State — with humanitarian agencies making substantial progress in health care, nutrition, water and sanitation, protection and other basic services. More than a million of them, and about 745,000 of them since August 25, 2017, who live in camps in Cox’s Bazar started fleeing to Bangladesh in phases beginning in the late 1970s. The facilities that they have been afforded, however, might not be adequate but have at least been enough to provide them with survival. Yet there have been some shortcomings on a few fronts and their education has been one among them. By June 2019, as a UNICEF report, ‘Beyond Survival: Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh’ launched marking two years of their latest arrival since August 2017, says, 192,000 Rohingya children aged 4–14 have been provided with non-formal education after having been enrolled in 2,167 learning centres. But the latest assessments show that 640 more learning centres are needed to accommodate 61,400 children aged 3–14. The report, which says that there are 683,000 children among the 1.2 million Rohingyas living in Cox’s Bazar, also talks about a worrying fact — 97 per cent of the children aged 15–18 are still not attending any type of educational facility.