In December, the Women’s Forum of Myanmar hosted a panel on education to discuss the progress the country has made—and how far it still has to go. Myanmar’s government, only recently reconstituted following the dissolution of the military junta that had ruled the country since 1988, has made moves to reform the repressed educational system, like reopening Yangon University and reinvesting in higher education. However, critics of the system suggest that the nation’s education has fallen in quality over the past decades. “In terms of quality, we have far to go,” said MP Su Su Lwin. “During the past 25 or 30 years, there’s been a decline in quality.”
The panel, echoing previous calls for higher education reform in Myanmar, targeted tertiary education as a necessary step in solidifying both a democratic transition, and better educational performance. Kamal Ahmad, founder of the Asian University for Women, based in Bangladesh, argued “You have to have a decent secondary education. You to have a decent higher education because where will the teachers come from? Who will develop the curriculum? Who will provide leadership?” A focus on higher education is aimed to ameliorate the “lost generation” created by the junta’s repression of schools and especially universities.
Also at issue is the persistent problem of gender discrimination in Myanmar schools, where women are held to higher entrance standards than men. One young woman reported that “To go to the Institute of Medicine, girls have to score higher than boys. A girl needs to reach 420 out of 500 points [on the entrance exam]. Boys can get accepted if they have only 390 to 400 points.”
There are international funding efforts to assist Myanmar’s educational system. Last month, the World Bank renewed its development commitment to Myanmar. The commitment “includes funding of around $200 million… to help Myanmar make progress towards MDGs [the UN’s Millennium Development Goals]” including education, said Word Bank President Jim Yong Kim.
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Written by Alex Leedom