Education in Burmese Refugee Camps in Thailand
“If we had stayed in the village, we knew that our children could never attend school and I wanted my children to go to school to be educated people. We also didn’t have any house to stay in. We could only stay in the forest and we had to flee away when the SPDC came or patrolled around our area, so we decided it was better to go to the refugee camp.”
—Saw, a 47-year-old male"My heart is heavy, especially for the young people who are growing up in the camp, like teenagers. When I walk through the camp and I see a lot of young people, especially students, I feel their need for rights; I feel for their futures. I think, “If I am that little girl, over the next 10 years how can I survive? How can I support myself?”
—A member of the Karen Refugee Committee
There are 70 schools in the seven predominantly Karen camps with more than 34 000 students. There are 11 schools in the two Karenni camps in the north, which is run by the Thai authorities, and implemented by local and international NGOs as well as community-based organizations (Oh, 2010). However, in generally, refugees in these camps have limited educational and training opportunities.
- The Administration of Education in the Refugee Camps
The Royal Thai Government decides the implementation of education service for refugees while Thai policies on education provision are decided by National Security Council (NSC), the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) (Oh, 2010).
In addition, the Thai government maintains a laissez-faire approach to refugees setting up their own schools and the accompanying structure to administer them. Teachers, caretakers, school committee members and principles are from the local refugee community. And because Karen is the main ethnic group in refugee camps, school policy is closely related to Karen Refugee Committee Education Entity (KRCEE) policy, but there is possibility of variation (Oh, 2010). The educational autonomy of Karen refugees in the camps are higher than those still in Burma who are not permitted to manage their own schools, to teach in their mother tongue, or to challenge the official version of the Burmese history (Oh, van der Stouwe, 2008).
And according to a study conducted by Oh and van der Stouwe (2008), the community management system is relatively well-structured and standardized across camps. For example, each camp has an educational committee consisting of teachers, parents, and community leaders, which also promotes interaction and communication between different stakeholders.
- Inclusion
1. The definition of inclusion
One crucial problem of education in the Burmese refugee camps is inclusion, which comprises the access to schools, quality and relevance of the learning experience, and equality and diversity in management structures (Bush & Diana, 2000).
It emphasizes that nondiscriminatory education framework is the right to education (Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 1949). And UNESCO also addresses the issue by highlighting that all children should have the right to receive the kind of education that does not discrimination on grounds of disability, ethnicity, religion, language, gender, capabilities and so on. Instead of discrimination, schools should value the diversity of learner and see difference as enriching rather than hindering the learning experience.
In the case of refugee camps, inclusion can be interpreted as the absence of discrimination, not concern for or attention to the diversity of educational needs among children (Oh & van der Stouwe, 2008). Inclusion doesn't focus on education for all but paying more attention to students who are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion (UNESO, 2003). To promote these students' engagement in education, explicit educational resources and investment should be made to ensure that traditionally excluded groups are included in the educational system and their needs are accommodated.
Access to education refers to having the opportunity to enroll in learning programs and institutions and having physical access to buildings and other educational facilities(Oh & van der Stouwe, 2008).
Literacy rate in the camps is estimated as 60% (TBC, 2013). One of problems in educational access lies in the disparities of educational opportunities from one camp to another. Although in some camps, such as Tak camps, Mae La, Umpiem Mai, Nu Po and Mae Sot, students can the access to higher education, education is unattainable for students in the more remote camps such as Lae La Oon and Ban Don Yang. For example, the Australian Catholic University (ACU) in Mae Sot offers a diploma in Liberal Studies and some other schools include the Wide Horizons and Minmahaw GED Programs in Mae Sot, English Immersion Program in Umpiem Mai, and Global Border Studies Program in Nu Po. However, many young people have no means to get higher education in their remote refugee camps and many of them end up doing their family business such as working as a hairdresser in the camps. When things get worse, some of them turn to drugs and alcohol, or even commit suicide because of the loss of hope for the future (Purkey, 2006).
Another problem is that refugee students are excluded from educational opportunities that are available to local Thai students. Because Thai government only intends to provide Burmese refugees a temporary shelter, it makes public schooling inaccessible to refugee students and acclaims that refugees occupy a particular administrative status that is only valid within the camps. If they get any chance to leave the camps, they become illegal migrants and are permitted to enroll in Thai public school, so that the access to education for refugees is confined in the camps.
Quality and Relevance of Education
Many factors, including individuals' background
Language, ethnicity, religion, and social inclusion
Based on this definition, Oh and van der Stouwe (2008) conducted a study to identify inclusion problem in Burmese refugee camps in Thailand. Based on many ethnically and religiously diverse peoples living together in refugee camps, education plays a crucial role in ethnic and religious conflict. Education in refugee situations can have a socially constructive influence on intergroup attitudes and interactions. Positive education can create a tolerate climate by teaching students to respect differences and deal with them with an appropriate way. But if students are taught with values that are not useful decrease ethnic and religious tensions, education can, on the contrary, exacerbate intergroup hostility and prejudice and it can be used as a weapon in cultural repression for hatred and segregation.
For Burmese refugees in the ethnically and religiously diverse camps, how to teach students to deal with ethnic and religious differences is a crucial part of education, which contributes to a peaceful environment in the camps and after their return to Burma. And because of the isolation in the camps, teachers and students don't have access to the outside world and different perspectives, the recognition of diversity by education is key to promote students' attitudes and behaviors toward out-group members.
Recognition of Certifications
“These certificates are not recognised in Burma. As a result, we worry about repatriation.”
—a young Karen woman from the Mon State in Mae La refugee camp, January 2015
Nursery, general education, post-secondary schooling, and vocational and adult learning are available in the Burmese camps in Thailand with the assistance of the Thai government, local and international NGOs, and community-based organizations (CBOs) .
Based on UN report on refugee education, quality of refugee education is unusually defined and measured by ineffective standards, which greatly affects the extend to which refugee qualification are recognized (Dryden-Peterson, 2011). There is some progress towards certifying the learning in the camps. For example a framework of cooperation with the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (OVEC) under the Thai Ministry of Education (MOE) was signed with certification as one of the objectives. However, many certificates from the camps are not still recognized in Burma, which greatly affects their decision about whether they will return to Burma and whether they can better benefit from education in the camps after their repatriation.
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social integration----inclusion
living together: Where different groups are living in the same environment, the integration of services in education can create important possibilities for social integration, but only if the content of education is conducive and explicitly addresses issues related to causes of conflict, good citizenship, social cohesion, human rights, etc.
learning to be different; learning to mistrust; learning to accept aggression; learning to fear (pp. 65)\
Many Burman refugees in the camps talk about problems of discrimination, exclusion, and suspicions of being government spies, often leading them to depart the camps in the end. Other camp residents, who speak Burmese, have also faced similar problems as they have been mistaken for being Burman. Refugees belonging to minority groups, however, say that the situation has improved in recent years and refugees are mostly not afraid to speak Burmese anymore.
the number of student per teachers (goal: 40:1): but 70:1 in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (ratio is attached)
the percentage of qualified/trained teachers (goal: >80%) (attached)
Education in the camps is provided by CBOs such as the Karen Refugee Committee – Education Entity (KRC-EE) backed up by international NGOs such as World Education. Many schools, especially in the less remote camps in Tak Province, have foreign teachers and volunteers, majority of whom stay illegally in the camps as permits remain largely unattainable. These foreigners teach refugees English and other subjects while hiding from Thai authorities, risking fines or even deportation. After the Thai junta took over power in May 2014, however, it has become increasingly difficult to enter and stay in the camps without a permit.
Challenge #5: The inherently political nature of the content and structures of refugee education can exacerbate societal conflict, alienate individual children, and lead to education that is neither of high quality nor protective.
curriculum:
Where urban refugees are integrated into national systems, for example, they by necessity follow curricula of host countries, whether or not the most probable durable solution is local integration or repatriation.
The content of what is included in curricula shapes what children know and how they think about themselves and imagine the future both for themselves and their society. It can be difficult for teachers to cope with curriculum topics that are controversial, and recent conflict-related topics are often omitted from curricula
stereotypes taught in class
language
neither in their first language nor in the language in which they have previously studied.
negative influence: social development, and drop out
- Challenge #6: Lack of financial resources,
higher education
there are limited opportunities for higher education, which also largely remains unrecognised outside the camps.
The issue for many young students is what happens after they finish a post-ten school, the highest level of education available in most of the camps. There are only a handful of schools on the Thailand-Burma border where these young students can apply for, leaving thousands of talented and dedicated aspiring university students with no means to educate themselves.
One of the most prestigious of the schools available for refugees is the Australian Catholic University (ACU), which offers a Diploma in Liberal Studies in Mae Sot as well as in Ranong. Other commendable schools include the Wide Horizons and Minmahaw GED Programs in Mae Sot, English Immersion Program in Umpiem Mai, and Global Border Studies Program in Nu Po. As these opportunities are only available to a few students each year, thousands of capable young adults are left with no means to pursue their dream of higher education. Many young people are determined to help their people and their country, but with no place to go for study, they often end up opening a shop or becoming a nurse or a teacher in the camp. Some leave to find factory work in Bangkok or elsewhere in Thailand while many others turn to drugs and alcohol, or even commit suicide, as they see their dreams crushed before them.
