Continuous Professional Development for Teacher Educator Development in Myanmar Education Colleges

Abstract

This article reports on the role of teacher education in the curriculum reform of basic education in Myanmar. There was political change in Myanmar, a transition from military administration to democracy in 2010. Political change impacts on various sectors such as economic, education and health. As the education system was changed to meet the international standards, curriculum in basic education and teacher education were updated. In the previous education of Myanmar that has progressed from the old monastic education to the current modern education, there has never been a curriculum framework although syllabi, textbooks, teacher’s guides with different teaching methods and various assessment forms were designed and used. Therefore, Myanmar Ministry of Education is now implementing the educational reforms by setting the curriculum framework with the direction of the National Education Law (Soe, et al.; 2017, Htet, 2020). This paper provides an overview of teacher education, basic education, curriculum reforms. Although teacher education including three institutions cooperates with basic education in implementation of the new curriculum, it found that there are still few weaknesses in implementation of the new curriculum of basic education. Soe et al. (2017) recommended that the new curriculum will fulfill local needs and circumstances and discourage the practice of rote-learning and will ensure that students grow as independent thinkers with their own sense of creativity.