Human Rights Watch urged Bangladesh’s interim government to urgently lift restrictions on education for Rohingyas and permit Rohingya children to enroll in schools outside the camps.
In a press, issued on Thursday, HRW also lack of education opportunities has also increased children’s vulnerability to spiraling violence by armed groups and criminal gangs in the Cox’s Bazar camps, including abductions, recruitment, and trafficking.
The release read that US and other foreign donor cutbacks in humanitarian aid have worsened the existing education crisis for 437,000 school-age children in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, with schools that served hundreds of thousands of children shut down.
The cutbacks have closed learning centers run by aid groups.
Community-based schools are still operating and are considered better but lack government recognition and are therefore ineligible for donor support, and have to charge fees that many families cannot afford.
‘The US and other donor governments are abandoning education for Rohingya children after the previous Bangladesh government long blocked it,’ said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
‘The interim Bangladesh government should uphold everyone’s right to education, while donors should support the Rohingya community’s efforts to prevent a lost generation of students,’ he added.
With increasing violence, abductions of children were so frequent in late 2024 that many parents stopped allowing their children to leave their shelters to go to school, refugees said.
Protection monitors reported 51 child abductions in the first quarter of 2025.
With the learning centers shut down due to the funding crisis, whether or not funding is found to re-open them, the interim Bangladesh government and donors should recognize and fund community-led schools to increase their capacity, HRW said.
The rights organisation also urged Bangladesh to follow the example of countries, including Türkiye, that have accredited and certified education for refugee children, including refugee-led schools teaching the curricula of their countries of origin.
