Bhutanese Refugee Camp Schools

The Bhutanese refugee camp schools were a network of educational institutions operated across the seven Bhutanese refugee camps in Jhapa and Morang districts of southeastern Nepal. Established beginning in 1992 and operated primarily by Caritas Nepal under the coordination and funding of UNHCR, the school system served a population that peaked at over 40,000 students and represented one of the most significant achievements of the Lhotshampa refugee community during its decades of exile. The schools provided education from primary through lower secondary levels, following the Nepali national curriculum, and produced literacy rates and examination results that consistently exceeded those of many surrounding Nepali government schools.^[1]

The refugee camp school system operated under extraordinary constraints: bamboo-and-thatch classrooms, minimal teaching materials, no laboratory equipment, and a teaching corps drawn from the refugee community itself — educated adults who received modest stipends rather than professional salaries. Yet the schools became the centerpiece of a community that viewed education as its most important investment and its most effective tool for preserving dignity, identity, and hope in the face of statelessness. For the generation of Lhotshampa born in the camps, the schools were the institution that most shaped their intellectual development, cultural formation, and eventual capacity to navigate life after resettlement in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.

The story of camp education is also a story of frustration: thousands of young people completed their schooling only to find that their diplomas opened no doors, their refugee status barring them from university enrollment, formal employment, and economic participation. This "education without opportunity" was among the most psychologically corrosive aspects of protracted displacement, and its resolution through third-country resettlement was, for many families, the single most important factor in their decision to accept resettlement.

Origins and Organization

Education in the Bhutanese refugee camps began almost immediately after the camps were established. Even before formal school structures were in place, refugee teachers — many of whom had been employed in Bhutan's education system before the expulsions — organized informal classes under trees or in the open spaces between shelters. The Lhotshampa community's high valuation of education drove this spontaneous effort: parents who had lost their homes, their land, their citizenship, and their country were determined that their children would not also lose their access to learning.

UNHCR contracted Caritas Nepal, the social service arm of the Catholic Church in Nepal, as the primary implementing partner for refugee education. Caritas Nepal assumed responsibility for constructing school buildings, training and managing teachers, developing curriculum materials, procuring textbooks and supplies, and administering the day-to-day operations of the school system across all seven camps. Additional support came from other partners, including the Lutheran World Federation, Save the Children, and various bilateral donors.^[2]

The school system was organized into primary schools (grades 1 through 5) and lower secondary schools (grades 6 through 8) in each camp. The larger camps — Beldangi I, II, and II Extension and Sanischare — had multiple school buildings to accommodate their larger student populations. By the late 1990s, the system operated over 30 schools serving approximately 40,000 students, making it one of the largest refugee education programs in Asia.

Curriculum and Instruction

The camp schools followed the curriculum prescribed by Nepal's Ministry of Education, using textbooks approved for the Nepali national school system. This decision was pragmatic: it allowed refugee students to potentially sit for Nepali national examinations and, if circumstances permitted, to transition into the Nepali education system. Instruction was conducted primarily in Nepali, with English taught as a subject from the primary level — a practice that would later prove enormously valuable for students resettled to English-speaking countries.

Core subjects included Nepali language and literature, English, mathematics, social studies, science, and health and physical education. Moral education and environmental studies were also included in the primary curriculum. The secondary curriculum added subjects such as economics, geography, history, and additional science and mathematics. Religious instruction was not formally part of the curriculum, though Hindu cultural education was woven into school life through assembly prayers, festival celebrations, and community events.

The limitations of camp-based education were most visible in the sciences. The absence of laboratory equipment meant that science instruction was almost entirely theoretical — students studied chemistry, physics, and biology from textbooks without the opportunity for hands-on experimentation. This gap would later create challenges for students who entered higher education after resettlement and encountered laboratory-based coursework for the first time.^[3]

Teachers and Training

The teaching staff was drawn entirely from the refugee community. This was both a necessity — Nepali law restricted the employment of refugees — and a strength, as many refugee teachers were educated professionals who had taught in Bhutanese government schools before the expulsions. In the early years, the teaching corps included individuals with bachelor's and master's degrees who brought substantial pedagogical experience to the camp classrooms.

Caritas Nepal organized regular teacher training programs, including initial orientation for new teachers and ongoing in-service training workshops covering pedagogy, classroom management, subject-specific instruction, child protection, and psychosocial support. UNHCR and other partners occasionally facilitated specialized training, including programs in English-language instruction, inclusive education for children with disabilities, and gender-responsive teaching practices.

Teachers received monthly stipends from Caritas Nepal rather than professional salaries. These stipends — typically in the range of 2,000 to 5,000 Nepali rupees per month (roughly $20 to $50 USD) — were far below what Nepali government teachers earned for comparable work. Despite this, teaching was considered one of the most prestigious and desirable activities available within the camps, offering a sense of purpose, social status, and a modest income in an environment where formal employment was prohibited. The dedication of refugee teachers, many of whom worked for two decades at these stipend levels, was one of the most remarkable aspects of the camp education system.^[4]

Examinations and Certification

One of the most important and contentious aspects of camp education was the question of examination and certification. The Nepali School Leaving Certificate (SLC) — the national secondary school completion examination — was the gateway to higher education and employment in Nepal. Refugee students who completed lower secondary education in the camp schools could, with significant logistical difficulty, arrange to sit for the SLC at designated Nepali government schools outside the camps.

The process of securing SLC examination access required negotiation between UNHCR, Caritas Nepal, and the Nepali education authorities. Refugee students were often required to register under the sponsorship of a Nepali school, and their participation was subject to annual negotiation rather than guaranteed by right. Despite these barriers, thousands of refugee students successfully sat for and passed the SLC, often achieving distinction-level results that ranked them among the top performers in their examination centers.

However, the value of an SLC pass for a stateless refugee was cruelly limited. Without legal status in Nepal, graduates could not enroll in Nepali colleges and universities (with rare exceptions), could not apply for Nepali government jobs, and could not obtain the identity documents required for formal employment in the private sector. The result was a growing population of educated, ambitious, frustrated young people with credentials that certified their knowledge but opened no doors. This situation was a direct driver of both the mental health crisis in the camps and the eventual embrace of third-country resettlement, which promised — and largely delivered — access to educational and economic opportunities commensurate with the students' abilities and aspirations.^[5]

Achievements and Impact

The achievements of the camp school system, measured against the constraints under which it operated, were exceptional. Literacy rates in the Bhutanese refugee camps reached over 90% — significantly higher than the literacy rate of the surrounding Nepali population in Jhapa and Morang districts at the time. Enrollment rates were consistently high, and dropout rates, while not negligible, were lower than in many comparable refugee education programs globally.

The schools produced graduates who went on to remarkable achievements after resettlement. Former camp school students earned university degrees — including graduate and professional degrees — at institutions across the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Alumni of the camp school system became nurses, engineers, social workers, teachers, IT professionals, business owners, and community leaders in their resettlement countries. Several have returned to work in international development and refugee assistance, bringing their personal experience of displacement to bear on professional practice.

Beyond individual achievement, the camp schools served critical community functions. They provided structure and normalcy to children's lives in an abnormal environment. They preserved and transmitted the Nepali language and literary tradition to a generation that might otherwise have grown up without formal instruction in their community's language. They created social bonds — among students, between students and teachers, and among parents connected through their children's schooling — that formed the backbone of community cohesion in the camps and, later, in resettlement.

The schools also served as a platform for broader community education, hosting adult literacy classes, health education workshops, awareness campaigns on topics such as gender-based violence and child protection, and community meetings. In this way, the school buildings — modest bamboo-and-thatch structures though they were — became the most important public spaces in the camps, functioning as town halls, community centers, and cultural venues as well as educational institutions.^[6]

Decline and Closure

The camp school system declined in parallel with the camp populations as the resettlement program accelerated. As families departed for third countries, student enrollment dropped, schools were consolidated, and teaching staff — many of whom were themselves resettling — departed. The gradual shrinkage was painful for educators who had devoted their professional lives to the camp schools: watching classrooms empty, programs close, and a two-decade investment in community education dismantle sector by sector.

The final camp schools closed along with the last camps during the consolidation and closure process of the 2010s and early 2020s. The physical structures — never more than semi-permanent bamboo buildings — were dismantled along with the rest of the camp infrastructure. What remained was not a building or an institution but a legacy: tens of thousands of educated individuals, dispersed across the globe, whose intellectual foundations were laid in bamboo classrooms in the Terai lowlands of Nepal.

References

1. UNHCR. "Refugee Education in Nepal." https://www.unhcr.org/asia/bhutanese-refugees
2. Caritas Nepal. "Education Programme for Bhutanese Refugees: Comprehensive Report." 2010.
3. Bista, Dor Bahadur. "Educational Challenges for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal." Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2002.
4. Lutheran World Federation. "Education and Community Services in Bhutanese Refugee Camps." Programme Report, 2005.
5. Human Rights Watch. "Last Hope: The Need for Durable Solutions for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal and India." May 2007. https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/05/16/last-hope/need-durable-solutions-bhutanese-refugees-nepal-and-india
6. Muggah, Robert. "Education and Fragility in Bhutanese Refugee Camps." UNESCO/IIEP Research Paper, 2008.

Contributed by Anonymous Contributor, Houston TX