COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS
To facilitate Asylum Seeker and Refugee Children in the community, small learning centers have been established in various area, usually in condos, where one or two rooms are taken and children gather in them and are taught English, Maths and Science. The age group is from early years to Grade V. The subjects taught depend on the ability of the children and a small test is compiled to check out into which Grade the children be allocated. There are about 20 to 25 students in each learning center but sometimes there are even more, depending on the location of the center.
The biggest difficulty these learning centers face is that there is no reliable source of income to provide stationery and other resources for the children. Usually individual donors help in this regard and sometime an NGO comes forward to help as well. There is also a shortage of text books for the subjects being taught in English, Maths and Science. The second problem is that due to security concerns the learning centers cannot cater to children from far out places. Usually children attending a learning center are from the same condo or a nearby surrounding condo.
Recently BASRAN members and partners have looked into home schooling and are trying to see how to introduce this into the community, but it will take some time as there are a lot of things that have to be taken into consideration first.
Overall, the students are being taught Thai as well and we hope that they will gain enough knowledge of Thai language so as to enable them to get admission into Thai schools.
The Community is trying its best to cater to the needs of children with whatever resources are available to them and so far they have done quite well. We hope that in the near future these learning centers will prosper even more and be able to continue providing education to our children.
Asylum Seeker Education: Online Curriculum and Resources
A new resource for asylum seekers and refugees in Thailand was launched in 2016. A partnership between the Pakistani community in Bangkok and NIST International School teachers, the Asylum Seekers Education resource websitefeatures online materials and educational curriculum developed by NIST teachers that can be used by community learning centers.
The resource website includes materials for secondary students, ages 11-16, physical education activities and Thai language lessons.
For more information, visit the Asylum Seekers Education resource website or contact them here.
To learn more about other online education resources click here.
BASRAN 