Political economy and (in)coherence of education systems in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

• In Event: Power and (in)coherence: political economy analyses of education systems in conflict and crisis

Proposal

The provision of education to Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar stands as one of the most contentious policy issues on the global stage, with Rohingya voices demanding access to education being repeatedly shut down by the Bangladesh Government. As of 2023, a staggering 978,000 Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar are deprived of access to formal education. Close to 80 percent of Rohingya children aged 6 to 12 are not able to read (Diazgranados et al, 2023). Furthermore, the learning outcomes for the Bangladeshi community in Cox’s Bazar are also low, making the Rohingya displacement a protracted ‘crisis within a crisis.’ There have been significant attempts to improve education for Rohingya and host communities through the coordination of humanitarian and development interventions. Nonetheless, these efforts had limited success due to conflicting political objectives in providing education to the Rohingya.

This paper aims to identify opportunities for improving education in Cox’s Bazar by analyzing the (in)coherences in Cox’s Bazar education system. This study forms part of the Education Research in Conflict and Crisis (ERICC) Consortium and presents the conceptual framework for analyzing education system coherence building on previous research on the drivers of children’s learning (Kim, et al. 2022), the need for education systems ‘coherence’ (Pritchett 2015), and the ‘humanitarian-development coherence’ in conflict and crisis (Nicolai et al. 2016, 2019; INEE 2021; Sommers et al. 2022). By bridging these bodies of knowledge, the paper highlights the interplay between norms, capacities, and operations in the education system and shows how formal and informal rules, resources, and power dynamics among key stakeholders shape the practical landscape of policy solutions.The findings draw on 35 key informant interviews collected in person in Cox’s Bazar between August 2022 and January 2023, a review of 130 sources of secondary data, and three top-up online interviews that were conducted in May 2023.

Data suggests that the extent and complexities of structural exclusion faced by Rohingya learners fundamentally derive from the differing objectives of the Government and international actors. For the Government of Bangladesh, education for Rohingya serves as an end to repatriation (itself influenced by disproportionate financial burden, its political consequences, and deteriorating host-community – Rohingya relations). Meanwhile, for the international actors, education is the means for improving the immediate livelihoods of refugees. The emphasis on repatriation has anchored education around the short-term and low-quality provision, limiting the scope for long-term sustainable strategies. Furthermore, the recent rollout of the Myanmar Curriculum (MC) is unlikely to improve learning outcomes unless there is a shift across the education system to focus on quality and continuity. Within the humanitarian vertical relationships of accountability, a system-level shift would require coherence between humanitarian response strategies and funding timeframes, as well as provider-level incentives to monitor and improve learning outcomes against shared quality standards. The lack of consistent data comparing learning outcomes across learning providers remains a glaring gap in the system. Furthermore, this study casts light on the dependence of specific education systems on larger regional and global geopolitics, pointing at potential advocacy opportunities.

Author

• Olha Homonchuk, ODI Global