Assessing Teacher Quality to Support the Implementation of the Myanmar Curriculum for Refugee Children in Cox´s Bazar

• In Event: Assessing Effective Teacher Policies in Conflict Affected Settings: Case Studies from Nigeria, Jordan and Bangladesh

Proposal

After decades of exclusion from quality education opportunities in both Myanmar and Cox’s Bazar, the Government of Bangladesh agreed to provide Rohingya refugee children with the opportunity to access quality education through the Myanmar Curriculum (MC) up to Grade 10. However, there are many challenges to its quality implementation, including the development of a capable workforce of teachers who can deliver the MC in the Burmese language, which neither the Rohingyas nor the host community speak. In fact, systematic state-led deprivation of Rohingyas from formal education in Myanmar have resulted in extremely low literacy rate among Rohingyas and an insufficient supply of trained teachers with subject matter knowledge required. After their forced migration to Bangladesh in 2017, UN-led and NGOs started to provide informal education opportunities for Rohingya children. Teachers delivering education were recruited from the host and the Rohingya community in equal proportions, but were given short trainings and English was used as the medium of instruction. The same body of teachers who used to deliver informal education opportuniuties are now tasked with delivering the MC curriculum, which is based on subjects and grades, and must be delivered in Burmese, all of which poses a critical challenge to the quality of teaching-learning in refugee camps.
The International Rescue Committee is conducting a formative research study in Cox´s Bazar with the aims of (a) Identifying the needs, challenges, and opportunities of implementing the MC in the refugee camps, and map the state of the affairs in existing learning facilities in Cox´s Bazar, (b) Assessing the degree to which the teacher recruitment policies, structure and content of the teachers’ training programs, and evaluation approaches is consistent with the quality implementation of the MC, and (c) Determining pain points in teachers’ recruitment, training, evaluation and retention and document potential practical solutions.
The study uses a mixed-method approach, using secondary data on teachers’ assessment, teacher training, teachers’ recruitment and retention, and primary quantitative and qualitative data that the IRC is collecting using surveys, interviews, FGD and classroom observations instruments with 462 MC students, 132 MC teachers, 36 MC trainees, 8 MC trainers, 17 education managers from INGOs and NGOs implementing the MC and education sector leads from the refugee camps in Cox´s Bazar.
The study will improve our understanding of existing challenges and best practices of education provision in contexts of forced displacement, which will help the education sector develop strategies and resources to effectively implement the MC and identify potential solutions to existing barriers related to teachers’ training in Burmese language acquisition and subject-matter knowledge. The study will also contribute to the literature of teachers’ identification, recruitment and training in emergency contexts, and the design of cost-effective solutions to address existing issues, especially in complex settings where language and subject matter knowledge are barriers to the quality delivery of education.

Authors

• Ashraful Haque, International Rescue Committee

• Proma Saha, International Rescue Committee (IRC)

• Md Galib Hasan, International Rescue Committee (IRC)

• Ahsan Mahmud, International Rescue Committee

• Htet Thiha Zaw, International Rescue Committee (IRC)