Burmese Refugee Education in Thailand
(To be continued)
Resource-rich and fertile, Burma was once regarded as “the rice bowl of Asia.” Under military rule since 1962, its fortunes have steadily declined, and today it is one of the world’s least developed and least free countries. It is also the source of one of the world’s most protracted refugee crises.
More than half a million refugees from Burma (also called Myanmar), are in mainly neighboring and nearby countries such as Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Thailand. Around 150,000 people, mostly ethnic Karen and Karenni, are living in designated camps in Thailand; some have been in these camps for more than 2 decades.
- Education As A Basic Human Right
“the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) affirmed the right of all children, regardless of status, to free and compulsory primary education, to available and accessible secondary education, and to higher education on the basis of capacity (United Nations, 1989, Article 28). ”
“The right to education for refugees is articulated in Article 22 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, resolution 64/290 (July 2010) of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations General Assembly on the right to education in emergencies (United Nations, 2010a), and in the draft resolution to the Hu- man Rights Council on the right to education for refugees, migrants and asylum seekers (June 2011) (United Nations, 2010b).”
Education is linked to both individual and social level of development. At individual level, the high level of education people have received is closely related to poverty reduction and health improvement. While at social level, education affects the overall quality of the population and political and economic growth of the whole society (Center for Global Development, 2002)