Creating Pathways to Opportunity: Non-formal Educational ‘Inclusion’ for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh

Abstract

In coordination with the Government of Bangladesh, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children International have been conducting a non-formal educational programme for the children of Rohingya refugees since 2017. Domestic partner non-governmental organizations are implementing the initiative. The purpose of this study was to examine the policy and the institutional arrangements and determine how they may influence the inclusion of Rohingya children in the education system. We found that the programme has set up infrastructure, but the location of refugee education that the government created is distinctly short-term, top-down, emergency-oriented and restrictive in many ways. Evidently, in order to avoid geopolitical and local sociocultural tensions, the host government did not really want to integrate refugees into local services and facilities, particularly access to education in public institutions. Nevertheless, civil society organizations and the Rohingya negotiated with the government, to a certain extent, an ‘inclusive’ space through discussion, dialogue and resilience for an expansion of this educational sphere. This space has created a limited sense of empowerment among the Rohingya.