The informal community learning centres (CLC) rely heavily on volunteer teachers, and have difficulties recruiting experienced and skilled teachers because of salaries and qualifications. As these teachers receive any renumeration for their work, often times they take on additional jobs to supplement the family income. This affects the quality of service provided to the children as the teachers might miss their class the following morning or fail to cover the basic functions of a teacher.

Teachers at community learning centres play a crucial role not just at the learning centres, but also within the communities and the population that the learning centres serve. Teachers who are trained in child protection, sexual gender based violence (SGBV), and other protection elements can play the role of advocates as well as responders; further strengthening the community's ability to self-manage.

As such, the provision of adequate teacher compensation is crucial to ensure that they are supported in carrying out their role at the learning centres. JREC has been tasked by UNHCR to assist and manage the provision of compensations to teachers teaching at these learning centres. The support also indirectly assist the refugee community in building their community by easing the pressure of having to source the funding of their children's education, while motivating the refugee community and the community based learning centres to maintain a good service standard.'

The project will contribute to improved quality of education for refugee children in Malaysia through compensation of teachers, thereby improve the retention of teachers working in refugee learning centres, mitigating turnover of teachers and ensuring that teachers invest their full attention to quality teaching. Subsequently this will hope to ensure that refugee children will have a committed teacher benefitting from this incentive and actually will learn in school, which is key to their protection and development.

The success of the work pilot program prompted UNHCR to conduct a Focus Group Dlscussion with the refugee workers involved in the work pilot. The discussions were fruitful as it has provided insights on how to better prepare the Rohingya refugees for legal work, henceforth, increase retention rate for the participating workers.

This led to the conception of the Work Preparedness Workshop and on July 2018 JREC was identified as a UNHCR partner to conduct the workshops. The implementation of the workshop was considered a success witha total of 62 workshop participants which exceeded the initial target number of participants by 24%. Some of the topics that were addressed in the workshops include:

• Advantages of working legally in Malaysia and the impact of the work pilot for the Rohingya community.
• Health and personal hygiene.
• Workplace safety.
• Stress management.
• Work ethics.
• Managing personal finances.
• Motivation and futurecasting.
• Malaysian culture, customs and etiquette within the workplace.

In order to improve the content and delivery of the workshops,feedback from the participants was taken upon completion of each topic during the workshop to ensure true and fair feedback as well as information retention.

The success of the work preparedness workshop has prompted an expansion of the project planned in 2019. The expansion is to include more relevant topics such as peaceful coexistence in Malaysia as well as youth and women empowerment within the refugee community.

The program encompassed several components and achieved remarkable outcomes:

• Tablet and Laptop Distribution: To establish digital learning at Learning Centers (LCs), 3,342 tablets and 131 laptops were distributed across 126 LCs. This initiative was funded by the Embassy of Qatar and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
• Data Plan Support: To supplement digital learning initiatives, grants were provided to 63 LCs, benefiting 2,000 students and 150 teachers. This support ensured students had access to data plans necessary for online learning.
• Famisafe Subscription: To safeguard students from harmful content, the program subscribed to Famisafe, which created a secure digital learning environment for students.
• Video Production: The program created a series of 72 educational videos covering Bahasa Malaysia (BM), English, Mathematics, and Science for Year 4, 5, and 6 students. These videos were developed in collaboration with 30 teachers from Rohingya Education Centres (RECs). The videos reached a wide audience, amassing a total of 30,000 views on YouTube. Local and refugee students, including Rohingya students, across the nation benefited from this resource.

By implementing these initiatives, the Digital Learning Support Program successfully addressed the educational challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and MCO measures. It ensured students had access to digital learning resources and equipment, enabling them to continue their education effectively during this difficult time.