The US and other foreign donors' cutbacks in humanitarian aid have worsened the existing education crisis for 4,37,000 school-age children in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on June 3 suspended thousands of "learning centres" run by nongovernmental organisations in the refugee camps, due to a lack of funding, said a press release issued by HRW on Wednesday.
Associate Children's Rights Director at Human Rights Watch Bill Van Esveld said the US and other donor governments are abandoning education for Rohingya children after the previous Bangladesh government long blocked it.
"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 said.
In April and May, Human Rights Watch spoke with 39 Rohingya refugee students, parents, and teachers in the camps in the Cox's Bazar District, 22 on Bhasan Char island, also housing refugees, and 14 international and Bangladeshi teachers, humanitarian workers, and education experts. Most Rohingya fled persecution and wartime atrocities in Myanmar, where they are effectively denied citizenship and other rights.
In 2024, the US government provided US$300 million to respond to the Rohingya refugee crisis, over half of the total amount received by humanitarian agencies. But as of June 2025, the administration of President Donald Trump had slashed aid to $12 million.
By April, the humanitarian education sector in Bangladesh, which funds the learning centres, had secured only about $22 million of its $72 million annual budget and was significantly reducing expenditures.
Out of a target of 437,000 school-age children in the camps, about 304,000 were enrolled in the learning centres.
UNICEF aimed to reopen the learning centres it funded for classes 6 and above by June 29, and encouraged nongovernmental organisations NGOs to reopen lower classes if they could find other sources of funding.
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