A Classroom Under a Tarpaulin: Sofaida’s Mornings and the Quiet Work of Keeping Girls Learning in Cox’s Bazar

Before dawn: Sofaida’s walk to a lesson under a tarpaulin

The first light in Cox’s Bazar is thin and sandy. Sofaida, an adolescent girl from the Rohingya camps, slips on her plastic sandals and gathers her books. The route to class is short by city standards but full of small obstacles: puddles, narrow paths between shelter walls, and the watchful eyes of relatives who still worry that schooling invites trouble.

Her classroom is a cluster of poles and a blue tarpaulin, set up between two rows of makeshift homes. Inside, a dozen girls sit on mats. There is no bell, no formal desk, and sometimes the wind makes the roof flap so loudly that teachers must pause and raise their voices. Yet for Sofaida this is a steady piece of her day — a place to learn to read and write in a language that is not her first, to practice simple sums, and to meet girls her own age.

“When I come here I can forget the shouting at home,” she says, folding her hands around a pencil. “I want to be a teacher one day so other girls can come.” It is a small, clear wish. For many families in the camps, that wish is what keeps girls coming back, despite risks and uncertainty.

How the community spaces work: who runs the lessons and what they teach

These learning hubs, often called Community-Based Learning Facilities, are run by a mix of local volunteers and international aid groups. In Cox’s Bazar, organisations such as Education Cannot Wait and Save the Children coordinate with community members to set up and staff the rooms. The idea is simple: bring basic education close to where families live so girls can get lessons without long, risky travel.

Classes are aimed mainly at children and adolescents who missed school during displacement. The curriculum focuses on foundational skills — literacy, numeracy, and basic life skills — and is designed to be flexible. Lessons are usually in Bangla or Rohingya dialects, depending on the teacher and the group. Instruction time varies; many centers run a few hours a day, several days a week, to fit around chores and family needs.

Teachers are often community members trained on short-term programmes. They are not usually certified in the formal sense, but they receive practical coaching: how to teach letters and numbers, how to manage a class in difficult conditions, and how to spot children who need extra support. The NGOs provide materials, basic training, and oversight. Save the Children, for example, focuses on program design and teacher support, while Education Cannot Wait helps coordinate funding and emergency response planning.

What these lessons change: attendance, confidence and new hopes

Attendance can be uneven, but many centers report steady participation among girls who are allowed to attend. Where families trust the space and the teachers, girls like Sofaida show clear gains: they become more confident speaking up, they learn to keep notes, and they begin to picture futures beyond immediate survival.

Teachers and aid workers point to a small set of measurable outcomes: improved reading skills over months, higher rates of girls returning after breaks, and fewer reports of idleness among adolescents. Those are useful markers, but the softer effects matter too. A mother in the camp told a volunteer: “When my daughter goes to class, she smiles more. She does not cry at night as much.”

In classroom corners where girls practice role-play or group reading, staff say they see a shift in how girls carry themselves. “They ask questions now — about health, about rights,” a community teacher says. “That was rare before.” That change matters because an adolescent who can read and discuss is better placed to make safer choices and to resist early marriage or risky work.

Where the system strains: safety, space and the extra risks girls face

These learning spaces are not a cure-all. Overcrowding is constant. One room may serve dozens more children than it was meant to. Privacy is scarce, and that affects adolescent girls more than younger children. Parents often worry about harassment on the way to class, and gender norms can limit how much time girls are allowed outside the home.

Health shocks like COVID-19 made things worse: classes paused, households lost income, and girls were pressed into more chores. When activities restarted, attendance lagged and some families prioritized food and safety over schooling. There are also language challenges — a curriculum designed for formal schools does not always fit the Rohingya context — and few places have the capacity to teach at higher levels.

Protection measures exist: centers try to place classes within living areas, they recruit female teachers where possible, and they run child protection sessions about abuse and safety. Still, those measures are patchy. Teachers are often thinly trained in safeguarding, and reporting channels for abuse depend on fragile coordination between NGOs and local authorities.

The money behind the mats: donors, short grants and the limits they create

Funding for these programs comes from a mix of international donors, emergency pools, and the budgets of big NGOs. Education Cannot Wait plays the role of a pooled fund that can flow quickly in crises. Save the Children and other groups use these grants to hire staff, buy books and tarpaulins, and run training sessions.

But much of the money is short-term. Grants are often designed for one-year cycles tied to emergency response. That makes it hard to plan for long-term teacher development, to scale up to serve every girl who needs help, or to move programs into formal schooling pathways. NGOs coordinate with local authorities where they can, but the sheer number of actors and the temporary nature of funds limit how sustainable the setups are.

How to keep the promise: practical steps that would change a girl’s life

For Sofaida and girls like her, the next steps are practical. Better teacher training would mean lessons that build real skills, not just keep children occupied. Consistent funding over multiple years would let programs grow beyond emergency patches and connect learners to formal schools. Stronger safeguarding — trained staff, clear reporting, and safe routes to classes — would reduce the daily risks that keep girls at home.

Success would not look like perfect classrooms overnight. It would look like girls who finish an extended course and can choose whether to continue study, work, or train. It would mean families who see education as a reliable path, rather than a risky extra. For Sofaida, success is simple: being able to teach others and to live with more choices than she has now.

These community-run classrooms are a modest, fragile answer to a huge problem. They show that learning, even in a tarpaulin tent, can change a child’s horizon. But to turn those small steps into lasting progress will require steady money, better training, and real protection for the girls who dare to walk the narrow path to a lesson each morning.

Photo: Mojahid Mottakin / Pexels

Sources

• prnewswire.com