Saleem Samad of DOT
The Rohingya refugee families and Bangladesh officials vehemently criticized the United Nations backed humanitarian operation.
UN agencies have provided $655 million in humanitarian aid over the last year, providing inadequate classrooms and curriculum, writes prestigious Los Angeles Times published on January 31 edition.
As most refugees have little hope of returning to Myanmar anytime soon, imparting basic education to refugee children should be a priority.
Critics say the makeshift learning centers — operating out of temporary bamboo structures slightly larger than huts — established by the UNICEF, and its partner agencies are little more than play areas where children are taught songs and rhymes, often in English, with little emphasis on the reading, writing and other skills many were taught in regular schools back in Myanmar before the violence.
The anger came to a boil in December, writes LA Times, when officials from Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, the government agency overseeing the humanitarian response — accused UNICEF and 10 of its partner agencies of incorrectly reporting the numbers of children attending learning centers, as well as engaging in other questionable practices.
The commission said it had found that aid agencies were not tracking the numbers of children who had stopped attending the learning centers, resulting in vastly inflated enrollment numbers that they used to appeal for more donor funding, according to minutes of the meeting obtained by The Times.
The commission also received reports that some agencies were opening new centers alongside existing ones run by other groups even though the additional facilities were not needed in those locations. They did so, the commission found, to “poach” children and increase their headcount to help with donor funding appeals.
Although the commission did not single out individual agencies for wrongdoing, 10 international and Bangladeshi groups were summoned for a meeting.
Two Bangladeshi officials on the commission, Shammimul Haq Pavel and A.S.M. Obaidullah, said UNICEF and its partners did not consult with the Bangladeshi government on its strategies and ignored repeated requests for better communication, according to the minutes, which officials confirmed were accurate.
UNICEF spokesman Jean-Jacques Simon acknowledged that there had been “communication gaps.” He said officials responsible for education would soon work out of the local government primary education office in Cox’s Bazar, the nearest city, to improve contact with Bangladeshi authorities.
He added that reports of “land grabbing” — setting up learning centers without approval from camp authorities — were an outgrowth of crowding in the camps, where more than 100 agencies are providing relief.
The head of the Bangladeshi commission, Mohammad Abul Kalam, said turf battles between aid agencies were not limited to the education sector.
“It is unfortunate that competition arises between humanitarian actors,” Kalam said in an email to LA Times.
UNICEF has warned of a “lost generation” of Rohingya children, who constitute 60 per cent of the camps’ population. They are visible everywhere, collecting firewood, helping parents with household work, taking whatever odd jobs are available — but often simply playing by the dirt roads.
In these facilities, Bangladeshi instructors teach children rhymes, dances and proper hygiene. There are often donated toys and a place for younger children to nap during the day. But most classrooms lack stationary, notebooks or drinking water.
As of July 2018, some 1,200 learning centers were operating inside the camps, and almost 140,000 children had been enrolled.
Parents say the informal schooling targets younger children and does not include reading, math or other basic subjects.
Frederic Vincent, who leads education activities in the camps for UNICEF, said aid agencies were finalizing a formal curriculum in Burmese, including all major subjects, that would be rolled out to learning centers this year to provide “more structured, quality education opportunities” for Rohingya children.
According to the most recent UNICEF data, 39% of children ages 4 to 14 don’t even attend the learning centers. That figure is 97% for children 15 to 18, a group that UNICEF has warned is at risk of sexual trafficking by criminal groups or other forms of exploitation, LA Times concludes.