UNESCO and partners provide emergency support for migrant children on the Thai-Myanmar border

It's a computer class, at first seeming commonplace. At the front of the room, a teacher is projecting a screen across which various sentences in English are being typed into a word processor. Students are learning how to use a computer as they type sentences indicating their name, age, and local residence. The exercise seems hardly extraordinary in our increasingly digititalized age. But there is something notable: each laptop is being shared by three or four learners, as though the instrument were an otherwordly commodity. 

We are at a migrant learning centre (MLC) in Thailand’s Tak Province, on the border with Myanmar. Many of these migrant learners had never encountered such a digital wonder prior to this sitting.

Not unlike this MLC in Phop Phra District, 62 others, spread across five contiguous border districts of Tak Province—roughly 426 kilometres north of Bangkok—betray similar conditions, while more children are seeking refuge almost daily in Thailand-based MLCs (many run by NGOs and others) amid Myanmar’s ongoing conflict. The 63 MLCs dotting the region, including 20 that boast spartan dormitories, are seeing the enrolment of migrant learners climbing upwards to 14,400 youngsters. More than half of the number arriving are vulnerable children of pre-primary and primary school age. 
 

And there seems no end to it. Indeed, one recent surge of migrant children crossing the border represented a 40 per cent rise from those of the previous school year. For some of the luckier migrants, their parents might be working in a local Thai community; for others, parents and siblings remain in Myanmar, despite ongoing conflicts.

In response to these concerning circumstances, the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok (UNESCO Bangkok) and the Thai Ministry of Education’s Tak Primary Educational Service Area Office 2, have been implementing the 'Care and Recovery for Migrant Children' initiative — an ‘Education in Emergency’ project aimed at supporting migrant learners and recovering their learning lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as due to their subsequent absence from school during their arduous journey to a foreign country. The overall project, implemented since 2023 under a humanitarian, development, and peace nexus, has been made possible thanks to generous support from the Government of Japan.

As for the project’s digital learning component, UNESCO Bangkok has provided information and technology (IT) equipment, including projectors and laptops, and ensured internet access to the MLCs while also compiling digital education assets on open-access platforms, all aiming to support teachers and students both now and in the future. In collaboration with the Inclusive Education Foundation, videos and digital learning materials have been especially developed to support learning recovery from school closures, and to further enrich the ongoing learning development of these children. 

New video lessons in Myanmar, English and Thai are hosted on UNESCO Bangkok’s LearnBig website and Facebook platforms. This digital education component not only brings benefits to migrant children in Thailand; in addition, it extends cross-border advantages to those remaining in Myanmar, many urgently requiring learning support equal to that being provided children on the Thai side of the border. Perhaps not surprisingly, 60 per cent of those accessing the LearnBig platform were recently doing so from within Myanmar itself only months ago. 
 

Recently commenting on the arrival of urgently needed IT equipment, an MLC principal noted, 

Students learn better when they see and hear. We have also received laptops, which are very helpful...Most of the students and teachers are not computer literate; so, during the upcoming semester break, I will run trainings for teachers on how to use computers in classrooms, and next semester I will include computer classes for the students themselves.

As for the nutritional component of the project, food and related sundries have been delivered to the 20 MLCs with lodging facilities, an operation that provides nutritious meals for some 7,000 children daily. Prior to the project, MLCs could manage to feed children only a frugal breakfast and dinner, thus leaving many to study without nutritious lunches. As a result, hunger often hindered student’s learning progress. In a recent site survey, MLC principals and teachers reported to UNESCO that the project’s provision of meals has improved the student’s attendance rates, academic performance, and overall physical and mental health. Students have also exhibited more interest in their studies due to the introduction of the IT accessories. 
 

Lending testament to how the project can change young lives in ways both concrete and morally encouraging, one principal of an MLC recently remarked,

In the past when I woke up, I was always worried if we would have enough to feed the children. I never expected a remote MLC like mine would receive this kind of assistance. Now I no longer have to worry, and I am thankful for the support. I will keep taking care of the children until my very last breath.

The project focuses on delivering urgent assistance to migrant students unable to return to Myanmar due to the ongoing conflicts, and thus remaining in MLC dormitories. For these students, their learning should continue with minimal interruption, even as MLC material infrastructure is upgraded, such as with the renovation of kitchens, bathrooms, classrooms, and the dormitories themselves.

Rika Yorozu, Education Programme Specialist, at UNESCO Bangkok, remarked of the ongoing project,

Providing the migrant children with emergency support ensures that they can continue their education in a safe environment, and together with other children. It is important that they can catch up on months and years of disruptions they faced in accessing school due to the ongoing situation in Myanmar and the pandemic. UNESCO highly values the efforts that principals and teachers of MLCs are making for the children, as well as the efforts being made by the Thai Government. We are also thankful to the Government of Japan for this very special and critical support.

#RecoveryforMigrantChildren #LifelongLearning #EquitableEducation