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A Peep behind the Curtain of Myanmar Education System

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. (Aristotle)

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. (Epictetus)

Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change. Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them. (Henry Steele Commager)

In May 2006, township educational authorities in Yangon, Myanmar ordered the closure of private tuition classes, boarding houses, English TOFEL courses, GCE courses and speaking classes for various languages have also been banned. The Government schools teach with very low standard so the education quality declined. But the students are unable to study privately even if they have money even during school holidays. Although private schools in Yangon are ordered to close down, the schools that are working closely with the ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) government and those elite schools attended by the children of the SPDC, such as the ILBC, the Horizon and the like are allowed to be opened continuously.

Just after Ne Win’s coup d'état of Democratically elected U Nu’s government, emphasis was placed on developing instruction only in Burmese, but since 1980 the Military Governments have reintroduced English into the curriculum from primary school upwards.  But since late 1987 the education system has been disrupted by a series of frequent closures and reopening of all schools and Universities.  Educational standards deteriorated as a consequence of the closure of the universities by the military government in 1988 and few more times later when widespread student opposition erupted.  In January 1991 the SLORC allowed medical students to resume their studies, and technical colleges and universities gradually reopened, only to be closed again the following December after more anti-government protests.  They reopened again in August 1992.  In November1993 Yangon's second university of arts and science opened but because of frequent student unrest, most of the universities are closed frequently.

Schools, Colleges, Universities and Institutes of Higher Learning are closed most of the time during the Military rule. These are seen by Military rulers as a fertile soil of dissent. Military leaders hate and scared the intellectual stratum.  

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. (Lord Brougham)

Those are mine fields for the army. Ordinary students have no enough test books, exercise books, pen, pencils, school bags nor school uniforms. They do not have enough schools, buildings, furniture, teachers or other various necessary items. Students have to go on foot or take the overloaded buses. Students of the Military could go with Mercedes and Pajero cars. After graduation ordinary students do not get jobs, Military related children only get good jobs. Military officer training schools and Diplomatic corps are exclusive clubs for children of army. To be registered in the air force, it needs a very good connection in the cabinet. Military’s relatives monopolized all the government scholarships to study or on-job training abroad. Transfer to good places and promotions are all reserved for the same privileged class.

Children of General Ne Win and sons of his Education Minister Colonel Hla Han started the trend of scoring distinctions in all the subjects in the university entrance examinations. It is a shame that Ne Win and other generals’ children used to obtain all round Distinctions all the time but were found out to be just average level students in the universities. But they ‘curiously’ still manage to score high marks almost in each and every subject in all the classes. They were openly favoured in the schools and universities and eventually in competition for jobs, postgraduate training internally and abroad, transfers and promotions. Military leaders and Professors or Consultants’ children and their in-laws only are chosen and allowed to do postgraduate studies in various Faculties and most prominently in all the Medical Fields. Now many of them occupied very high posts in present Myanmar’s Medical fields.

Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you don't consider your students to be human beings. (Lou Ann Walker)

General Ne Win started with the tradition of providing his children with the examination papers few weeks before each and every examination, every year. Examiners were also required to provide with the answers. Just before the examination night or sometimes in early hours of the morning only, Ne Win’s children used to leak the questions to their best friends. From them it used to spread slowly, and there would be a major leak just before the examination especially in Yangon Universities. As that practice and leaks were for the elite schools and universities in Rangoon only, it is an unfair disadvantage for the ordinary students from the other parts of the country.

If any examiner did not toe the line and try to question the “special privileged VVIP students” in the examinations, he would get endless reprisals. Most prominent incident was a Ph.D. holder of Anatomy was dismissed eventually from his job.  Myanmar lost one of the only 4 PhD Anatomy holders at that time but that brain drain was positively tapped and used by Malaysia. Although he just crossed into Malaysia without any travel documents, he was given Red IC (like US’s Green Card) and later became Malaysian Citizen. He got the job as a Professor in UKM (National University of Malaysia), and is now still working in International Islamic University in Malaysia.

One of the “gifted”, “genius” princess who always score distinctions in all the subjects every year, failed badly in the Membership examination of the Royal College. Ne Win was humiliated because his attempt to bribe the Royal College with the gift of a hostel failed to get the desired result. But all other “less clever” nine candidates from Burma who sat the same examination together passed the exam. To put salt into the wound, the princess command of English was so poor that she was barred from re-sitting the exam within next three years. The successful candidates suffered the backlash. Their trip to UK for the postgraduate training and Part Two examination was delayed for few years due to jealousy.

But it was a blessing for the students of Burma. General Ne Win ordered the reversal of the education policy by ordering to use English as a teaching medium. Before that reversal order, English teaching started only in secondary school and all the subjects were taught in Burmese except English proper in all the schools and universities. Since then he ordered to start teaching English from KG. And starting from the secondary schools, teaching media was changed into English. Those changes were sparked into full force when Ne Win found out the poor grasp of English among his grandchildren.

Malcolm X remarked: “Education is the Passport for the future.” All Myanmar/Burmese accepted this. As Myanmar Military and “the State” controlled all the business opportunity, they have no choice but to rely on education esp. the Professional degrees e.g. Medical, Dental, Engineering, Economics, Education, Forestry, Mining, Law etc. to guarantee their future carrier. Because of the popular demand there is a very high competition. Parents have to push their children and send to various tuition classes since primary school.

There was also another problem even in the schools starting from primary up to the high school level. The children of Military and rich people who could give presents to the teachers, lecturers and professors could get all the favours in the classes and in the examinations. In contrast to them the students who are poor or children of the ordinary parents and mixed blooded students were discriminated unfairly especially in the Medical schools. The professors simply follow the chauvinist trend and unjustly discriminate upon the mixed blooded students, sometimes openly calling names as Tayokes and Kalas. “Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.” (Charlotte Bronte)

So even in Master Final examinations those well connected students pass without even able to identify the Spinal cord, definition of the Phimosis and unable to demonstrate the present of Ascities (accumulation of water in abdominal cavity). Now they are specialists and some became professors! The real unfairness is: if any Medical Student could not answer those facts they could be failed in the examinations but the above well connected candidates not only easily pass the examinations but got Distinctions even after committing those blunders.

Ye can lead a man up to the university, but you can't make him think. (Finley Peter Dunne)

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. (George Bernard Shaw)

Because of the very low salaries and high cost of living and rocket-high inflations, government teachers have to double as tuition teachers although they are not allowed officially. Because the government salary is not enough, they have to take other second jobs sometimes even as the taxi drivers, if they are scared of punishment if they give tuition classes.

Although the official school fees are reasonably cheap, various compulsory donations are quite high and a burden on the poor parents. Uniforms, textbooks, exercise books and stationary are a rarity at official shops but the parents have to depend on the outside shops with exuberant prices. Because of political instability the schools closed off and on. With the bad economy, insufficient family income and inflation it is no wonder there is a very high drop out rate. When the school closed for various reasons, students started to involve in business or engaged in a job. Even when the school reopens, no one is that sure they would be able to get a chance to enroll in a professional course or the universities would be not close down again. So the students decided to remain in their job because they already got the taste of the income. Some of the students would just enroll into private education e.g. computer courses, account classes, foreign language classes etc. Rich people, well connected persons as those with relatives and friends abroad or the children of the Military who could solicit sponsors from foreign companies which have business interest in Myanmar could send their children abroad for studies.

Previously some foreigners were allowed to attend the Burmese universities for the undergraduate and postgraduate class. Now they are totally banned because of the political instability. Nowadays many countries and even the developed countries are encouraging the foreign students because of the good income generation. Myanmar Military should aim that kind of noble income. They generate more stable and long term income than the tourism industry. There should not be any excuse of not enough seats in the universities as the hard currency income from the foreign students could be used to expend the existing universities. Host country will not only get the education fees but the fees for the long term accommodation and foods. Many Asian students are eager to go to Myanmar universities because most of the degrees offered in Myanmar are accepted in their home countries. And with the competition of the foreigners the standard of Myanmar students could also become higher. Universities would get more funds for the various equipments and could offer better salaries for the staff. If there are twinning programs and exchange of the teaching staff and students the level of the education could be higher.

In Myanmar, Fellowship and Membership candidates were chosen and sent only on selected years only if there was a VIP candidate wishing to sit for that particular subject and exam. It is a shame there was no long term consistent Health and Education policy but just have to follow the whims and fancy of the children of VIPs. It is a strange and funny fact to note the shortsightedness of National Health and Education planners. They thought that there was an oversupply of Medical experts and sent for the training abroad for further studies in one Medical field only (not each and every Medical fields) for two three persons in every few years during 80’s. And even for the local Postgraduate trainings, they admitted two persons yearly in each and every subject in those 80’s. Local training is actually at no extra expenses for the government as there are enough professors and Medical Institutes in the country. And there is no wastage of manpower, as the doctors have to work while attending the course as it is a natural process of postgraduate training in all the Medical fields. And there are a lot of fresh graduate doctors waiting for a chance to get experience of working with the government. Sometimes they have to wait for up to three or four years.

But now only because of migration of doctors and population growth, Myanmar Government is facing or more accurately feeling the shortage of Medical Officers and Specialists. Now there is a new law of compulsory service and also made it almost impossible to resign from the government services. They opened more universities at various states but at the outskirts of the towns. There is no proper transport, no hostels, no enough infrastructure support and no enough teaching facilities and materials. For the five Medical Institutes nowadays Medical Students could not get cadavers to dissect. Only Military Generals’ children and rich students who paid exuberant prices could get the cadavers at the private Medical Tuitions. Medical students could not do practical training in labs and could not get a chance to check the patients because each Medical School is accepting thousand of new students every year. So there is no practical test, no viva voce, no short and long cases just theory tests only even for the Final Year Medical Students. They have to learn by watching the VCD of the dissections, operations and sign and symptoms of patients.

But as a blessing in disguise, the deteriorating Myanmar Education System had indirectly produced a lot of useful graduates. Many Burmese students stay away from the less useful local universities, worked out side and just enrolled as distant learning students. Many of them sometimes rightly choose the computer classes, language classes, accounting, and economy classes. Even many of them choose the vocational trainings.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves. (Saint Francis de Sales)

Nowadays many Burmese citizens are studying around the world some in actual universities many in ‘practical life universities’. I am happy and am also proud to see that many young and old Burmese are speaking a lot of foreign languages as they had to work in various countries abroad. They got a lot of practical training in various business and factories, labs and universities. And many of them could save some hard currency. I hope that once our country gains the second independence and established a Secular Democratic Federal Union and started to practice to really free market economy, with the help of the US EU ASEAN our INTELLIGENT GRADUATES FROM REAL-LIFE-OPEN-UNIVERSITIES around the world and inside Burma/Myanmar could launch a rocket-speed rapid development of our country.

Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced. (Barbara Tuchman)

Education is the transmission of civilization. (Ariel and Will Durant)

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. (Marian Wright Edelman)

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. (Nelson Mandela)

SHWE BA (BURMA DIGEST)

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Comments

Mr. Mya said _

Very good. I agree - education is the single most important thing Burma needs to move quickly into democracy.

Lu Tha said _

Yes, I agree with the author. Education is the foundation to build a solid nation. However, we can't be neglecting to cultivate humanity and virtue, which I think are also missing in the country.

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