Funding Shortage and Teaching Quality

                               (Source: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/current-issues-in-refugee-education/education-in-burmese-refugee-camps-in-thailand)
Cuts in assistance from donor countries during these years have affected education in the camps. For example, after decades of providing education assistance to refugees on the Thai-Burma border, the Dutch NGO ZOA experienced a nearly 50 percent drop in its budget in 2010 when its biggest donor pulled their funds.  ​Because of the drop in funding budget, teachers in the camps lost half their stipends and the Dutch NGO ZOA could no longer adequately fund school materials or maintain school buildings.

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The funding for per primary and secondary students is $44 per year. Education staff who on average earn between $15, which leads to high rate of teacher turnover and create gaps between demand and supply of teachers let alone qualified ones (Oh, 2010). Because of the low stipends for teachers, and to some extent as a result of resettlement, there is an extremely high turnover rate for teachers; many of the teachers in the border camps are young, inexperienced, and under- trained. With such high turnover and because of budget cuts, new teachers, many of whom are recent high school graduates themselves, receive a one-month crash course before finding themselves in front of a class.

 

Speaking of educational policy issue, according to the Thai government, NGO experts are not allowed to work as teachers in camps. Outsider experts can only work as advisors without being able to accept official training and teaching classes, which doesn’t help reduce the crisis of the lack of teachers in camps. And in many schools, foreign teachers and volunteers only stay illegally in camps and risk fines and deportation. In addition, the quality of education greatly varies from one camp to the other. In some remote camps, the access to education is largely unattainable for refugee children.
 

Higher Education and Recognition of Certification

  

In the most camps, the available highest level of education is post-ten, which is provided by UNHCR and non-government organizations. So what will many young people do after finishing a primary or secondary school?  There are only few schools on the Thailand-Burma border where these young students can apply for. But with limited opportunities, only a small part of talented and dedicated students can get access to higher education. 

Among these schools that offer higher education, one of the most prestigious schools is the Australian Catholic University (ACU), which offers a internationally recognized diploma in Liberal Studies in Mae Sot as well as in Ranong. However, thousands of students are left with no means to get into this school or pursue higher education as refugees. So many of them end up with opening a barber shop, becoming a nurse in the camps or even committing suicide, with no means to realize their dreams.
Recognition of certification:

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For example a framework of cooperation with the Office of the Vocational Education Commission (OVEC) under the Thai Ministry of Education (MOE) was signed with certification as one of the objectives. However, the quality of refugee education is defined and measured by ineffective standards, which greatly affects the extend to which refugee qualifications are recognized (Dryden-Peterson, 2011).And many certificates from the camps are not still recognized in Burma, which greatly affects their decision about whether they will return to Burma and whether they can better benefit from education in the camps after their repatriation.