Education project for vulnerable Rohingya refugee children in Penang Malaysia as they don't have access to education

Join the challenge and support our Campaign to provide quality and standard education to the Rohingya refugee children in Penang Malaysia!

With a big ambition, Imam Bukhari Advanced Education Centre was opened in February 2025 at Bagan Dalam, 1200 Butterworth Penang. This area is the most refugee populated area in the state of Penang, Malaysia with approximately 400-500 families where over 200 young children without any education both academic and Islamic and staying under urban refugee context. We started with 18 children at the first opening month and gradually increased every month and now over 60 students within 5 months. We are expecting more to come and for next year there will be approximately minimum 150-200 students in this Islamic and academic education centre. Our mission is to establish from the basic primary education to until secondary level and as well as GED program for the refugee students. This area is the most refugee populated area in Penang, but there was no learning centre available to attend in quality and standard education. We are providing standard and quality education to the most vulnerable Rohingya refugee children including orphans, children with no parents, unaccompanied children, children with single women and others. 

Now It's Your Turn to Make an Impact and Take a Positive Step Toward Supporting to educate Rohingya children.

What Can You Do with Just whatever you could be able to donate!

Every single dollar donated means that a Rohingya vulnerable Muslim child will receive better education to change their future lives. But you’re doing much more than that! Your support for this campaign helps:

Enhance Religious Awareness

• Provides educational resources to ensure a correct understanding of Islam and balanced religious learning.
• Provide free and quality education both Islamic and academic to build their bright future.
• To break the barrier of financial hardship forces some to leave school early. 
• To run this Islamic and academic school will run and function smoothly and your donation will be used for operation, teacher payment, utilities & electricity bills, books purchase, school furniture purchase, stationaries and minor and major repairs and renovation. 

It’s a duty of every Muslims ummah and why Rohingya refugee children are no access to formal and public education system in Malaysia? 

Legal, policy and urban refugee context of Malaysia

First, I am going to explain the legal, policy and urban refugee context of Malaysia. Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. Refugees and asylum seekers are not legally recognised by the Malaysian Government — they have no legal or administrative status and lead a highly precarious existence with very little or no access to protection under the law. They have no legal right to work, and their children have no access to formal education in the Malaysian national school system.

This situation leaves refugee and asylum-seeking families wholly dependent on informal, non-state educational institutions, known as Alternative Learning Centres- ALCs, for their children’s learning. Most of these centres operate with extremely limited support, and vary considerably in terms of capacity, quality, and sustainability. They frequently struggle with a chronic lack of financial resources, inadequate infrastructure and facilities, a shortage of qualified teachers, and insufficient educational equipment and materials — all of which hinder the delivery of quality education to the refugee children.

There is no overall coordinating body or standardisation of curriculum. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Malaysia has made efforts to support this ecosystem by, for example, establishing minimum criteria for Alternative Learning Centres- ALCs to be recognised. It has been able to provide very limited financial assistance, occasional training opportunities, and other targeted initiatives to some Alternative Learning Centres- ALCs over the years. However, the scope and consistency of this support have largely depended on INGOs, NGOs and community support.

Demographics and scope of exclusion

The new data of the UNHCR Malaysia is grounded in the reality that Malaysia is home to nearly 193,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with UNHCR Malaysia as of March 2025, with close to 30 per cent (approximately 57,000 individuals) of them being under the age of 18. There is also an unknown number awaiting registration. Many of the children have been born in Malaysia, or arrived at a young age, and will remain here for the discernible future — displaced, excluded from formal education, and growing up in circumstances that dramatically constrain their ability to reach their full potential and future.

UNHCR Malaysia’s enrolment data as of April 2025 indicates that only about 35 per cent of school-age refugee and asylum-seeking children it has registered are currently enrolled in ALCs. This has been the situation consistently for at least the past two decades, resulting in widespread educational exclusion that has denied countless children the fundamental right to learn and develop in safe, supportive educational environments.

The consequences of this exclusion are profound and long-lasting, and have dire implications for individual children, the broader refugee community, and for Malaysia. They range from entrenched poverty, disempowerment, marginalization, and vulnerability to exploitation, to increased risks of poor mental health, child labor, early marriage, social dependency, human trafficking, and potential radicalization. The situation calls for urgent, coordinated, and inclusive strategies to expand access to quality learning opportunities for all refugee and asylum-seeking children.

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