Non-Formal Education for Displaced Rohingya Children in Selangor: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

The fear of persecution in Myanmar have led to thousands of Rohingya people fled the country and seek asylum in neighboring countries including Malaysia. The Rohingya have been seeking refugee status in Malaysia since the 1980s. Currently Malaysia hosts the largest number of Rohingya refugees among the ASEAN countries. However, as Malaysia is not the signatory party of the 1951 Refugee Convention, there are no specific regulations that protects the rights for the displaced Rohingya. From a legal point of view, the displaced Rohingya cannot enjoy refugee rights due to the absence of effective domestic law. The Rohingya children are also facing challenges in getting their right to education especially in formal education as they are not the nationals of Malaysia. According to the Malaysian law, only the nationals of Malaysia are given the access to enter the public schools. Although Malaysia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Rohingya children rights to education are still being deprived. The purpose of this study is to examine how the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) played a major role to provide non-formal education for the displaced Rohingya children in Selangor. It should be noted that UNHCR has collaboration with the local NGOs to conduct non-formal education for the children. After intensive field work and meeting with different stakeholders, this paper forwarded that it has been a big challenge for NGOs to work with the Rohingya children education especially lack of infrastructure, funding, less skilled teaching staffs and limited access to public examination.