A closer look at a refugee school

They are refugees from Myanmar but these children have found shelter in a school which provides them education and some basic needs.

VIDEO INSIDE PUCHONG: On the outside, it looks like any other generic Puchong shoplot. On the inside, it is a school bustling with excited children, armed with textbooks in hand.

The school is run by the Burmese Refugee Organisation (BRO), which claims to look into the needs of refugees fleeing political instability in troubled Myanmar.

Sixty-one students aged between seven and 16 receive their education here. The teachers and the staff are either refugees themselves, or volunteers.

All of them have to cram into a single shoplot floor, where classes are separated only by wooden boards.

Some of the students stay in a nearby BRO-run hostel, where they are fed, clothed and given shelter. Others make their way here everyday from all across the Klang Valley.

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However, their status as refugees results in a constant change when it comes to attendance rolls.

Some of the students have to leave when their parents find employment in different parts of the country. Others find themselves fleeing from the authorities.

Even the school is not a complete safe haven, however cheery things may appear on the surface.

The government is a regular visitor here. On Jan 8, officers from the Education Ministry paid the school a surprise visit. Later, on Jan 12, three presumably plainclothes police officers appeared at its hostel unannounced.

In both cases, the visitors were treated with politeness, albeit with a fair bit of caution.

BRO told FMT that more than 10,000 Burmese refugee children currently reside in Malaysia. However, less than 40% of them are getting some sort of education. Some get it through different refugee associations. Others, get it from their parents.

Either way, none of the country’s 79 independent Burmese refugee schools are able to provide these children with official certificates.

None of that seems to dampen the students’ of the BRO school spirits, however, who are more than happy to receive instructions from their teachers. - FMT