In Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, home to the world's largest refugee camp, education for nearly 300,000 Rohingya children has been disrupted as international aid cuts force schools to close. However, digital learning offers a ray of hope.

Cox's Bazar

In Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, nearly 300,000 Rohingya children have been left without access to traditional schooling after international aid cuts forced the closure of thousands of learning centres in the world's largest refugee settlement. To address this gap, a digital classroom initiative now reaches over 6,000 children, using portable projectors to deliver lessons in the Rohingya language.

Teachers report high attendance rates in these video-led classes, and students benefit from audio-visual materials that make lessons easier to understand. The program, supported by international and local NGOs, adapts Myanmar's curriculum into engaging videos and enables children to share their voices through digital newsletters, providing a vital educational lifeline despite ongoing funding challenges.

Bangladesh: Rohingya children turn to digital lessons

In the world's largest refugee settlement, thousands of learning centres have remained closed for months due to cuts in international aid. Nearly 300,000 children have been left waiting for schools to reopen. Yet in the cramped shelter, hope breaks through a small projector light's upper turpulent wall, and suddenly a lesson unfolds in Rohingya, their own voice in the darkness. We show recorded lessons on a projector and students understand and comprehend them easily because the audio-visual format helps them better follow the language and material. I dream of and miss my home Arakan. I want to go there and work someday. That's why I need to study and make myself useful. A digital classroom program now reaches more than 6,000 children using portable projectors. Digital learning has become a lifeline for many children as funding cuts sweep through the refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, forcing many schools and learning centres to shut down. Teachers say attendance in these video-led classes remains above 90%. Once a week, students produce Moja Kids, a digital newsletter filmed on donated phones, letting children share stories and talents with other camps and even classrooms abroad. Where children share their voices far beyond their harsh surroundings. We get to see all these digital education materials and then study the same content from the books, making it easier for us to understand lessons. The lessons created by international charity Children on the Edge with local NGO partner Mukti turns Myanmar's educational curriculum into colourful videos, taught by Rohingya teachers using stories, cartoons and examples that children truly understand. We are harnessing the power of the digital program so that our students and our teachers can learn to read and write in their own language and then understand the curriculum given to them, opening the door for full comprehension and education. Even as funding shrinks and classrooms close, this digital lesson remains a fragile but powerful lifeline, keeping an entire generation of young students from disappearing into the shadows of the world's largest refugee camp. Tanvi Chaudhry, Al Jazeera, Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh.

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