Myanmar’s Education Reforms A pathway to social justice?

Marie Lall

doi:10.14324/111.9781787353695

Abstract

This book reviews the state of education in Myanmar over the past decade and a half as the country is undergoing profound albeit incomplete transformation. Set within the context of Myanmar’s peace process and the wider reforms since 2012, Marie Lall’s analysis of education policy and practice serves as a case study on how the reform programme has evolved. Drawing on over 15 years of field research carried out across Myanmar, the book offers a cohesive inquiry into government and non-government education sectors, the reform process, and how the transition has played out across schools, universities and wider society. It casts scrutiny on changes in basic education, the alternative monastic education, higher education and teacher education, and engages with issues of ethnic education and the debate on the role of language and the local curriculum as part of the peace process. In so doing, it gives voice to those most affected by the changing landscape of Myanmar’s education and wider reform process: the students and parents of all ethnic backgrounds, teachers, teacher trainees and university staff that are rarely heard.

Highlights

At the time of writing in 2020, the Myanmar government educates 9 million children in 45,600 schools with 320,000 teachers
The system of teacher education and the teaching profession is inherently inequitable. Do teachers face their own social justice challenges partly due to material constraints, and partly due to the local cultural outlook, but teacher education is instrumental in reproducing the same social justice issues again and again
Only 60 per cent of female teachers become head teachers and fewer make it to Township Education Offices (TEO) positions, something reflected in the expectations of the student teachers surveyed between 2015 and 2016

Summary

Introduction

At the time of writing in 2020, the Myanmar government educates 9 million children in 45,600 schools with 320,000 teachers. The DTEd allows teachers to teach at middle school level, they will start as primary assistant teachers when they graduate, and move up to middle school after five years when they can become junior assistant teachers (JAT) Under this system, if teachers wanted to become secondary school teachers or move on to administrative posts in education, they needed a Bachelor of Education degree that could be acquired at the Institutes of Education in Yangon or Sagaing, for those in Lower and Upper Myanmar respectively.[4]. In many parts of Myanmar, larger ethnic groups such as the Karen, Kachin, Rakhine and Shan co-exist with smaller minority communities like the Pa-O, Danu, Lahu, Lisu, Wa, Htet, Dainet, etc This diversity translates into a linguistic challenge with over 100 languages spoken throughout the country (MEC, 2017)

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