Students and teachers need help to defy an inhumane regime

There was a time when young people in Myanmar were brimming with hope. For a generation that grew up in the dark – literally, due to power outages – and reading colourless textbooks, the rise of telecoms and internet connectivity enabled them to tap into the global pool of knowledge.

In 2020 at least, Myanmar’s economic growth was among the highest in Southeast Asia and Myanmar’s talent was beginning to be competitive with its peers in the region. Yet, that all came to a halt with the pandemic and the military coup the following year.

Myanmar’s education sector is among the most affected as it is among the most involved in the aftermath of the military coup. Before the coup, the education sector was among the largest in the country. This changed drastically after the coup, with the involvement of students and teachers in resisting the military junta’s attack on Myanmar’s democracy.

The young people of Myanmar, Generation Z, took to the streets with their creative demonstrations in the aftermath of the coup.

Likewise, 400,000 teachers from basic and higher education combined were crucial in spearheading the non-violent resistance against the junta, as the majority of them took part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

The teachers’ refusal to work under the military regime was evident from the many white and green uniforms and the teachers’ formal attire that were distinctly visible in the rallies and protests.

A fragile system

The enormity of the CDM must have caught the military by surprise. As the movement grew in popularity, the military ramped up its pressure on those involved. CDM personnel – teachers, school staff and students alike – have been dismissed by the Naypyidaw government.

Soldiers and police have continuously cracked down and confined individuals associated with the CDM to prison, regardless of their status. One year after the military takeover, schools and universities are barely functioning, and few students are going back to class.

While the CDM successfully embodied the spirit of Myanmar’s Spring and showcased the junta’s inability to govern the country and protect its people, it has also come at a cost. Prior to the coup, the education system had already been weakened due to the pandemic.

Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in March 2020, schools have been closed. Even though the nation had a promising and nascent digital infrastructure, Myanmar was unable to completely and quickly migrate public schools to online learning.

With the involvement of teachers and students in post-coup protests, the education system has basically come to a further halt, with March 2022 marking the second anniversary of Myanmar students’ absence from class.

When teachers and students decided to abandon their schools and campuses, they knew what they were getting into. They knew how viciously the military would hunt them. A high school teacher in uniform was shot dead while protesting in downtown Yangon.

Many others have faced similar fates under the brutal hands of the military. They also knew that while the protests were needed to resist the junta, their involvement would mean a fatal blow to an already fragile education system.

The teachers understood that millions of children and youth would get cut off from education as a result of their participation in the protests. Yet, what drove them was the view that holding classes under a fascist regime was anything but true education.

“I chose to be a teacher because it is a noble profession, and we must educate our next generation,” said a teacher from Yangon. “But it is also our duty to help the children understand right and wrong. Working under military rule, we can no longer champion justice and morality.”

Ongoing persecution

The exact scale of involvement of education personnel in the CDM, particularly the specific numbers of CDM teachers and students involved in the movement, varies across townships and timelines.

At its peak in February 2021, right after the coup, more than three quarters of teachers and school administrative staff boycotted the new administration. The impact might not have been immediately visible then since schools and universities were already closed due to the pandemic.

But over time, it was increasingly felt. In the subsequent months, the number of teachers involved in the CDM fluctuated. Some had no option but to go back to work. Others persisted and abandoned their jobs and titles. But even those who returned to their workplaces were still persecuted for the political stance they had taken.

Thus, the teachers were trapped in an infinite dilemma between conforming and resisting, with some having gone in and out of the CDM multiple times. Precise nationwide data for CDM-ers is hard to collect, largely due to the sensitive nature of the CDM and in consideration of the security of the people involved.

The Scholars At Risk network has reported widespread cases of the military seizing control of and setting up bases on school and university campuses. Student union leaders who were critical in mobilising large-scale protests were violently persecuted. Their campus offices were raided.

In recent months, as clashes between the civilian defence forces and the military have intensified, the junta has begun a terrible campaign of indiscriminately torching villages, schools, hospitals and monasteries. As the Spring movement drags on to year two, we must find ways to honour these brave teachers, students and their families and figure out possible solutions to address the education gap in Myanmar.

A widening education gap

Millions of students and youths in Myanmar currently do not have access to public education. While teachers and students involved in the CDM anticipated some of the immediate consequences, not many of them had expected or foreseen the scale of the impact of the CDM on the education sector.

One of the underlying reasons is that the CDM was never supposed to be a multi-year enterprise.

In the couple of months following the coup, when the CDM was gaining momentum, those involved expected two possibilities: the status quo would soon return and they would go back to their normal lives; or the Spring movement would prevail in a matter of months given the overwhelming solidarity of all the groups in the nation.

But such prospects were quickly proven to be very difficult to achieve because of the escalation of both the junta’s extreme atrocities and the efforts of the parallel government in opposition to topple the regime.

The CDM started as a bottom-up campaign behind which civil servants and students wholeheartedly rallied. But as the movement progressed, it became an indispensable platform for the opposition forces. As it gets increasingly tied to the goals of these junta opposition forces, scaling down or ending the CDM engine is nowhere near consideration.

As radical as it may sound, students are encouraging fellow students not to go back to school and they are so far being successful in this campaign.

Such a hardened stance is not without consequences. As things drag on, grave consequences for the children of the country could be irreversible, with the situation potentially damaging their social and psychological development because they have been away from their peers and from activities in a formal learning space.

A learning loss of two years (and counting) could haunt their academic progress for the rest of their lives. Moreover, looking after young people at home is an added burden for family members.

Students cut off from higher education may have more options to explore during the interim period – the time before the government in opposition regains power. But few of these options are accredited and none of them leads to a degree or diploma. And online learning can only do so much in subjects that require practical experience and experimentation.

Worst of all, Myanmar's students are now years behind their peers in an increasingly globalised job market.

What might an alternative look like? The military has tried to reopen schools and universities on multiple occasions but with little success.

To begin with, school and university faculties are largely empty and substitute teachers are rarely qualified. Most importantly, the young people of Myanmar have realised that education is so much more than obtaining a certificate at the end of a school year. For them, substance matters.

They have also heard accounts of the oppressive tactics of the military junta during the dark decades in Myanmar (1990-2010). It might be tempting to give up on the CDM and go back to school, but those classes would be a mere shadow of what was promised by the democratic regime a few years before.

Two possible pathways

Amid these difficulties, hopes for a better education for the young people of Myanmar remains. For the future of education in Myanmar, at least two pathways exist. The first is to seek alternative education. The second is to seek systemic change in the education sector.

Supporting alternative education

For students in Myanmar, there is a growing need for alternative education, one that accommodates the urgent needs of this interim period and could help sustain the CDM apparatus.

The National Unity Government Ministry of Education has devised home schooling programmes for basic education and a series of webinar broadcasts for higher education. A number of civil society initiatives have also come up with a variety of interim education programmes (IEPs) that reflect the demands of students.

Already before the coup, there was a strong group of ethnic education providers who offered courses in their mother tongue, mostly for basic education. Yet despite the positive programmes, the loose format of IEP courses still fell short of the expectations of students and parents.

A particular problem was that the courses did not lead to the kind of official credits attributed to formal education. There are hopes from students and parents of more continuous and formal learning during the interim period.

Furthermore, the current coverage of the IEPs is a far cry from real demands. One issue for students and users of the programmes is the state of digital infrastructure in Myanmar.

Students from low-income families, which make up the majority of the population, cannot afford smart gadgets, nor are they able to stay online for multiple hours to participate in the courses.

Teachers are also no better off because they were never trained to deliver lessons virtually.

Another issue is the operational and academic capability of IEP providers. Often, they are led by youth activists who are eager to contribute to the cause but are limited in their management capacity and experience.

In addition, given the security risks and constant scrutiny of programme providers by military forces, it is a miracle that the IEPs are running at all. An even larger threat is when the general public gives up on the political struggle and bows to the military education system.

Education in Myanmar is currently characterised as being both “a means to an end” as well as “an end in its own right” for the country. It is an end because education is indeed a goal for the nation and a fundamental right for every person.

At the same time, Myanmar’s Spring is the means to an end as the education sector will serve as an indicator of who will have the true mandate in the ongoing democratic struggle – whichever party accommodates the 11 million children and one million young people and their family members will earn their legitimacy.

This politicisation of access to education is among the bitter truths that post-coup Myanmar is facing. For democratic forces, time is not in their favour. More and more students will likely choose to side with the military as time drags on.

Enabling systemic change

For international and development partners who are keen to support the Myanmar cause but are reluctant to be involved in the armed resistance, there is one objective that could provide a solution: to catalyse systemic change in Myanmar’s education sector.

It might be counterproductive to establish a brand new platform in the name of a specific donor. Such a platform could have the best user interface, world-class courses and excellent assessment designs. But despite all the good intentions and a superb quality of provision, it would be difficult to replicate and sustain locally.

Furthermore, the country would be pressured to continue to rely on incoming foreign funds and may never be able to break out of those influences.

Instead, development partners could introduce capacity building mechanisms for existing IEP providers, including the National Unity Government Ministry of Education, and share their best practice on curriculum development, student support, assessment and evaluations, and revenue models.

They could also encourage IEP organisations to start employing CDM-ers as they scale up their platforms to rival those under the military education system. Development partners could also support the organisation of massive nationwide campaigns to advocate for lifelong learning, which has never been a mainstream concept in Myanmar.

Strengthening the system through the CDM

Strengthening the system by strengthening the CDM may seem a highly politicised manoeuvre, but it is a testament to democracy and to our humanity.

Catalysing systemic change in the education sector must begin with a comprehensive, yet realistic, assessment of its stakeholders, including their preferences, strengths, limitations and relationships.

It should also include a genuine cultural appreciation of local populations – starting with the unique role of the teacher, the tri-factor relationship between parents, students and teachers, and differing attitudes about online learning and certain learning interfaces.

The stigma surrounding education is that it must happen in blocks: finish high school by 18, get a degree by 22, secure a job and one’s education is done! There seems to be a notion that those who missed these marks will not get a second chance and this mindset only exacerbates the current education crisis.

By promoting lifelong learning, students could not only broaden their window of opportunity to learn but also develop their skills throughout their careers.

Education is a fundamental human right and should certainly be a priority for children and young people from all corners of the world. But when the institution committing the worst human rights atrocities is inviting you to join their school, what would you decide?

When teachers and students join the CDM, they are not leaving their education behind. They are, in fact, asking what true education should be and defying an inhumane regime.

When one student stands up to the injustices of a system, the world cheers. When millions are standing up to the injustices of a system, the world should not remain silent. Myanmar’s education CDM must persist in order for democracy and human rights to prevail.

We seek support from the international community in strengthening alternative education platforms and bringing about systemic change in society for the better and for good.

This commentary was written by Spring University Myanmar – e-mail admin@springuniversitymm.com – and was first published by the CSIS Myanmar Initiative Program as part of its Young Myanmar’s Scholars Commentary Series. The programme seeks to initiate policy research, discussions and collaborative engagements to generate options for regional governments and organisations along with civil society groups and the international community to effectively address the post-coup humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. The programme’s activities and published materials are generously supported by regional and international institutions and donors. The publication does not reflect the positions of its research clients and sponsors. CSIS is an independent, non-profit think-tank institution based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Since 1971, CSIS has continuously worked to provide policy recommendations to shape government policies at the domestic, regional and international levels.