OPINION
While there are no easy choices, support for junta-run schools risks legitimising the regime, boosting the harmful effects of its education system and diverting support from better alternatives.
By ROSALIE METRO | FRONTIER
If education is a human right – as asserted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – should educational aid be provided with the same urgency as food, water and medicine during a humanitarian crisis? And should educational aid be provided even if the regime through which it must flow disrespects the human rights of students, teachers or families?
Earlier this month, during a keynote address at the International Conference of Burma/Myanmar Studies at Chiang Mai University, Dr Charlotte Galloway of the Australian National University suggested just that. International organisations and foreign donors, she argued, should contribute money and expertise to support the education system of the State Administration Council, as Myanmar’s junta calls itself, via the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
This suggestion surely comes out of Galloway’s long experience with Myanmar and her deep concern for its youth, many of whom have been denied educational opportunities since the 2021 military coup. The number of students registering for the university matriculation exam per year hasn’t exceeded 300,000 since 2021, compared to over 900,000 before, illustrating how few students are poised to access higher education in government universities. School enrollment has fallen by about one third, and recent reporting indicates that the SAC is trying to cut costs, thereby driving out poor students whose families can’t afford the increased hidden fees at schools.
Based on a brief conversation with Galloway at the event, I can say that she is not naive about the capacities or intentions of the junta. Nor did she present aid to the SAC as an either/or funding decision, but as a both/and. She believes that foreign donors and agencies should also support the educational initiatives of the National Unity Government, a parallel administration formed by lawmakers ousted in the coup, as well as non-state Ethnic Basic Education Providers and migrant communities in neighbouring countries.
Her argument is practical rather than ideological: as the SAC’s years in power lengthen, more young people are deprived of meaningful education. Aid could increase access. What she’s suggesting is essentially a return to the pre-2010 arrangement. Under the previous junta led by Senior General Than Shwe, UN agencies and other international organisations provided funding and support for education reforms.
Education – but at what cost?
While I acknowledge the good intentions of this proposal, I have concerns about what its impact could be. What makes education different from food or water is its inherently political nature. There is no ideologically neutral curriculum or teaching method. Both the SAC and the military regimes that preceded it have promoted ethnic Bamar Buddhist supremacy, repressed critical thinking and trained students to obey the military. While the textbooks – even those partially rewritten between 2010 and 2021 – contain incomplete and misleading histories, they may still be less damaging than the “hidden curriculum,” or the implicit lessons of the classroom environment. Students are punished for original thought and self-expression, ethnic minority children who don’t speak Burmese flounder, and those who pay bribes get the best marks.
One might say that providing educational aid to the SAC would be equivalent to giving poisoned food and dirty water to starving, thirsty people. It might fill their bellies but it ultimately makes their problems worse. As pointed out in the book Education in Post-Coup Myanmar, published in July, it is not only the quantity of education that matters but also the quality and the effects on students’ identities.
Funding educational alternatives
Nonetheless, the status quo clearly deprives many students of educational opportunities. Therefore, several questions need to be answered before concluding whether educational aid to the SAC would be helpful, harmful or have mixed results. The first is which, if any, international funders would currently be willing to support the junta. Here, I lack insight – but most funders would have to square any support with sanctions and diplomatic condemnation.
The second is whether education aid to the SAC would legitimise it while undermining the Civil Disobedience Movement, a mass strike by civil servants against military rule that was joined by hundreds of thousands of teachers and students. Given the SAC’s struggle to get them back to school as well as its attacks on resistance-run schools, it clearly sees education as an arena for competition with revolutionary forces. Just the announcement of education aid to the regime would be a win for it and a blow to revolutionary forces – if only by suggesting that the SAC will be in power long enough to distribute such aid. Then there’s the legitimacy that the junta could gain by more effectively fulfilling one of the core functions of a modern state, the provision of free education, after several years of chaotic governance.
The next question is whether educational aid would be better directed only to non-SAC-linked actors including the NUG and ethnic-based providers. Although some of these actors still use parts of Myanmar’s official curriculum and alternative curricula remain a work in progress, I believe non-state schools are a better alternative in terms of both curriculum and teaching methods. The NUG’s matriculation exam, offered for the first time last year, attempted to move away from memorisation and repetition and towards the kind of critical thinking conducive to a democratic society. Meanwhile, ethnic providers are trying to respect minority language rights by implementing Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education, and even though this is challenging, it’s a step in the right direction. This month the NUG held a press conference to reemphasise their commitment to promoting “diversity, inclusiveness, academic freedom, institutional autonomy, equity, and equality” in higher education. While these values may remain aspirational, the NUG is at least not asking teachers to sign loyalty oaths or pledge not to be involved in politics, as the SAC is doing.
Punish the SAC, not the people at its mercy
Given the risk of legitimising the SAC, the damaging content and methods of its schools, and the preferable alternatives that could be funded instead, giving educational aid to the military regime would, in my view, be ultimately more harmful than helpful.
But at the same time I believe families that access the SAC’s education system, or those who work for it, should not be punished or criminalised by resistance forces. If the revolution succeeds, there will need to be some process of readjustment, accountability or reintegration for civil servants, including teachers, who have continued to work for the regime. But I hope this justice will be restorative rather than retributive. It’s distressing to read reports of families being threatened with post-revolutionary consequences for defying the CDM; to hear of students who previously attended SAC schools being fined when enrolling in CDM schools; and at the extreme end, to learn of resistance groups allegedly killing regime-employed teachers and administrators.
In my view, while CDM participants wholly deserve support and recognition for their sacrifices, people should not be blamed for accessing the only form of education available in their areas, just as they should not be condemned for accepting food, water or medicine from the junta. As recent reporting and research shows, those who attend SAC schools don’t necessarily support the regime. Given the numbers that protested the coup in early 2021, I would wager that most do not.
While education is always political, questions about its delivery aren’t black and white. I therefore appreciate Galloway’s attempt to move the discussion forward without claiming to have all the answers. I’m eager to hear from the individuals and families that would be affected by her proposal, and learn where they think educational aid should be targeted.
Rosalie Metro has been working with teachers on the Thai-Burma border since 2001. She is an Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
