Tackling Barriers in Education for Refugees in Crisis Situations: Is a Universal Curriculum the Solution?
Shahariar Sadat, Deputy Executive Director of Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University
Arafat Reza, Research Associate at the Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University
“We couldn’t go to school; my parents weren’t able to feed us. They were burning the villages down. So my parents and their five children left Myanmar, and we walked across the jungles of Southeast Asia. We took every bus possible. We were essentially stateless, meaning we had absolutely nothing. We didn’t have citizenship. We had hiding spots to hide from the officials. And this was something any child shouldn’t really experience at that point of life.”
This heart-wrenching statement is taken from an interview with Noor Azizah, a Rohingya woman who, along with her family, was forced to abandon their belongings and motherland to save their lives amidst a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military.
While many other children around her age were going to school, learning in the comfort of a safe classroom environment, and playing to their heart’s content with fellow students, she traversed through the jungles, traveled miles, and overcame inexplicable hardships before she could experience the warmth that sitting in a classroom surrounded by caring peers and teachers could bring.
Upon being granted asylum in Australia in 2003 at the age of 8, she went on to pursue a degree in education at the University of Sydney. Her unyielding desire to help others pushed her to pursue a career as a teacher and participate in numerous advocacy initiatives for Rohingya issues. Among other things, she visited a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh and talked with the residents about gender-based violence and human trafficking—two extremely important issues in the context of the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.
Despite such well-documented and incredible transformative value of education in the lives of refugees, it is usually the first service to be suspended and the last to be restored whenever a crisis occurs. It is important to mention here that the number of refugees around the world is increasing rapidly. It rose to 35.3 million in 2022 from 27.1 million in 2021, which represents the largest yearly increase ever recorded. In mid-2023, it reached 36.4 million.
Considering these figures, along with the fact that a refugee spends about 20 years in exile on average, it is reasonable to conclude that suspension of education during a crisis for prolonged periods of time results in generations of children either never returning to school or struggling to cope up when they do return, and that we will see more number of children being devoid of their right to education in the future.
The Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University has been implementing two education pathways —Refugee Higher Education Access Programme (RhEAP) and Language, Images, and Analytical Thinking (LIT)—at the Ukhiya sub-district of Cox’s Bazar, focusing on Rohingya students aged between 14 and 24, in partnership with Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, Bard College New York and UNHCR.
Drawing from our experiences of running the RhEAP and LIT programs in the humanitarian context, we strongly believe that, among other things, developing a universal curriculum can help bring more refugees from the camps to the campus. The purpose of this blog post is to initiate a much-needed discussion on how developing a universal curriculum for refugees can be beneficial in both increasing access to education and providing education to refugees.
Over the years, various challenges that refugees face in their pursuit of education have been identified through extensive research. In some countries, especially those in the global south with limited resources, refugee students suffer because of the government’s unwillingness to accept them into their formal streams of education for fear of encouraging local integration and believing that this would delay or even shut down the possibility of repatriation. Another problem also often seen is that their learning is hampered due to a lack of curricula, a shortage of qualified teaching staff, the absence of structured lesson plans, limited access to textbooks, a lack of formal accreditation, a lack of necessary documents needed for securing admission, a different language of instruction, and their previous education not aligning with the curriculum of the host country. Many of these challenges can be mitigated or removed if a universal curriculum is drafted.
Furthermore, if a universal curriculum is prepared in advance and can be rolled out as soon as a crisis begins, key stakeholders will not have to spend much time consulting and negotiating with the host government on relevant issues like what subjects can be taught and what pedagogy needs to be followed. These discussions are always time-consuming, during which children and adolescent learners may remain idle. During this period, they may drift towards anti-social and unlawful activities, such as smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking, becoming a lost generation in the process.
Also, refugee crises around the world are currently being addressed in a reactive manner, with most measures being undertaken only after the crisis has begun. The world should take a more proactive approach, with certain actions taken prior to the beginning of the same. The universal curriculum would be an excellent example of the much-needed proactive mindset in global refugee discourse.
In drafting the curriculum, equal and active participation of all key actors, including teachers, donors, representatives from NGOs and CSOs, representatives from the government, and representatives from different refugee communities, must be ensured. Emphasis must also be placed on utilizing the experiences of and gaining recognition for the curriculum from the governments currently hosting refugees.
However, the drafting and proper implementation of a universal curriculum will require a significant amount of money to be invested. Therefore, it is crucial for donors to allocate more funds. Given the profound importance of the universal curriculum, the authors sincerely hope that the Global Refugee Forum prioritizes it and considers bringing the international community together to prepare a draft of the same and ensure its immediate implementation