‘I don’t have any aspiration because I couldn’t study’: exploring the educational barriers facing adolescents in Cox’s Bazar

The right to education is stipulated in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (UNHCR, 2018) setting out a vision for all stakeholders to work in unison to expand national educational systems and accommodate refugee and host community children and adolescents alike. This vision is further articulated in Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion and aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 4 calling for ‘inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.

Education for adolescents in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, however, is a serious concern. Approximately half of the Rohingya children living in the area had not participated in any form of learning prior to displacement from Myanmar and the recent influx has placed pressure on the fragile structures serving host community adolescents. Although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates the sacrosanct right to education, Rohingya refugees have been denied formal education. Children aged 4–14 receive informal learning via a tailor-made Learning Competency Framework curriculum developed by UNICEF and partners, delivered in more than 2,000 learning centres across the refugee camps. Many adolescents are not able to access learning, however, and the 2020 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya crisis warns that ‘an alarming 83 percent of the [Rohingya] adolescents and youth aged 15-24 years old don’t have access to any educational or skills development activities’.

Suggested citation

Guglielmi, S., Jones, N., Muz, J., Baird, S., Mitu, K. and Ala Uddin, M. (2020) ‘“I don’t have any aspiration because I couldn’t study”: exploring the educational barriers facing adolescents in Cox’s Bazar.’ Policy Brief. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence. (https://www.gage.odi.org/publication/exploring-educational-barriers-facing-adolescents-coxs-bazar/)