The report, titled “Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges Not Walls”, highlighted the achievements and shortcomings of countries in ensuring the right of migrant and refugee children to benefit from quality education which would serve both their interests as well as those of the communities in which they live.
The executive summary of the report, emailed to Bernama, said the right of these children to quality education, although increasingly recognised on paper, was challenged on a daily basis in classrooms and schools and outright denied by several governments.
In Sabah, the report said, children of Filipino and Indonesian migrants are identified as foreigners in their birth certificates and barred from attending public schools.
The same goes for Rohingya children in Malaysia who are denied access to education due to their protracted statelessness.
The report’s director Manos Antoninis said: “Considerable changes are being made in countries from Chad and Uganda to Lebanon and Turkey, to make education more inclusive for children, no matter their identification or residency status.
“It is time for Malaysia to do the same.”
Although curricula can be adapted locally to embrace diversity, the report said, not all school heads were aware of the issues or motivated or equipped to lead the development of intercultural understanding in their schools.
In Malaysia, it said, school leaders who were asked to implement intercultural programmes were hampered by a lack of guidance from the government and little autonomy for adaptation.
Particular emphasis was made on the chronic education needs of refugee children with disabilities in the country. Learning centre teachers in Malaysia observed that some families with limited means kept children with disabilities out of school in favour of sending their siblings instead.
The report listed seven recommendations for the education of migrants and displaced people: that their rights be protected, that they be included in the national education system, that their education needs be understood and planned, that their histories be accurately represented in education to challenge prejudices, that teachers be prepared to address diversity and hardship, that their potential be harnessed and that their education be supported through humanitarian and development aid.
The executive summary of the report named migration and displacement as two global challenges that interact with education in many ways. It said both affect those who move, those who stay and those who host immigrants, refugees or other displaced populations.
Internal migration mainly affects rapidly urbanising middle-income countries such as China, where one in three rural children is left behind. International migration affects mainly high-income countries where immigrants make up at least 15% of the student population in half of the schools.