Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Malaysia

Rohingya refugee children face immense challenges in getting access to education. Research shows that Rohingya children in Bangladesh are facing an educational crisis: they cannot attend public schools, and their education is restricted to limited non-formal education from NGOs and sporadic refugee-organized teaching efforts. Of the five countries that prohibit refugees from accessing public schooling – Bangladesh, Burundi, China, Malaysia and Nepal – Malaysia hosts the second largest number of Rohingya refugees. What level of access do these children have to schooling? This policy brief investigates Rohingya refugees’ access to non-formal education in Malaysia through the cases of two communitybased refugee schools.

Brief Points

• In the absence of access to public education, Rohingya refugees attend UNHCR-funded learning centers or community-based schools.

• More teacher training is needed to provide quality education for refugee children.

• Rohingya parents often consider education to be of secondary importance, compared to having a job.

• Girls’ education is severely limited, due to parents’ unwillingness to send adolescent girls to mixed gender educational facilities.

• Malaysia and other host states should recognize the needs of refugee children and allow them access to quality education.