Prevalence of educational needs and factors associated with educational severity among Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh: a representative cross-sectional household survey

Summary Background Approximately 1.2 million Rohingya refugees currently reside among the 33 refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar - Bangladesh, where the right to education remains a critical humanitarian concern. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of Rohingya refugee children in educational need, elucidate predominant reasons among children in need, and identify factors associated with educational severity to inform targeted humanitarian relief efforts. Methods This study utilized participant data collected during the 2023 Joint Multi-Sectoral Needs Assessment—a representative cross-sectional household survey. Education-age children were assigned a severity score categorized as stressed, severe, or extreme based on proxy responses capturing educational access, learning conditions, and protection factors. Ordinal logistic regression examined factors associated with increasing educational severity scores. Findings Among 8,408 education age children surveyed from 2,959 households, 29.6% were in severe educational need and 10.1% were in extreme educational need. After adjustment, increasing educational severity scores were significantly associated with head of household age 45-59 (aOR= 1.29 [95%CI: 1.09–1.54]), head of household age 60+ (aOR= 1.31 [95%CI: 1.07–1.60]), female headed households (aOR= 1.33 [95%CI: 1.15–1.54]), early education age boys (aOR= 3.95 [95%CI: 3.21–4.85]) and teenage boys (aOR= 4.42 [95%CI: 3.73–5.24]) relative to primary school age boys, early education age girls (aOR= 4.23 [95%CI: 3.36–5.31]) and teenage girls (aOR= 19.06 [95%CI: 15.70–23.15]) relative to primary school age girls, primary school age girls (aOR= 0.82 [95%CI: 0.68–0.99]) relative to primary school age boys, and teenage girls (aOR= 3.54 [95%CI: 3.04–4.12]) relative to teenage boys. Interpretation Educational needs remain highly prevalent among Rohingya refugee children influenced by structural factors, systemic challenges in service provision, household vulnerabilities and serious child protection issues – particularly among teenage girls. Local humanitarian authorities are currently providing targeted relief to those in educational need but these interventions are threatened by sweeping international funding cuts. Research in Context Evidence before this study Approximately half of the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar are education-age children. Contemporary humanitarian frameworks conceptualise education-in-emergencies as both a critical service and protective system to safeguard vulnerable children. Concerningly, prior analysis identified the education sector as the leading reason for households in extreme humanitarian need. Preliminary investigation foreshadowing gendered disparities and raised serious child protection concerns. However, these results were restricted to extreme needs only and did not disaggregate educational severity by age, gender, or underlying reason—limiting its ability to strategically inform sectoral programming. Added value of this study Sub-group analysis revealed nuanced age-gender dynamics with similarities observed among early education (age 3-4) and primary school (age 5-11) children, followed by stark disparities during adolescence between teenage boys and girls (age 12-18). Teenage girls experienced dramatically elevated odds of educational need, predominantly attributed to deprioritisation, inadequate gender separation, and serious protection concerns including child marriage and early pregnancy. Logistic regression quantified age-gender characteristics associated with educational severity whilst controlling for household vulnerability factors. Implications of all the available evidence Our findings demonstrate high prevalence of educational needs and pronounced gender inequities concentrated among teenage girls. The evidence suggests that humanitarian programming should be consolidated for younger children (age 3-11) and differentiated for teenagers (age 12-18) to address disparate needs through gender-specific interventions. The comparative strength of individual characteristics associated with educational severity suggests prevailing structural factors and systemic service delivery challenges, consistent with prior evidence of limited gender-responsive learning opportunities. These challenges are further exacerbated by large-scale facility closures that local humanitarian authorities attribute to sweeping international funding cuts. Strategic, intensive, and sustained relief efforts are needed, alongside longitudinal studies to monitor trends and clarify causal pathways.