Episode #95: Education, The Passport to the Future
Nelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” The inverse of this quote, however, is also true: one of the best ways to prevent change within a society is to limit access, censure what is taught and stifle creative thought. And the military leadership in Myanmar have been doing just this for generations. This was perhaps vividly depicted best by Pascal Htoo Thwe, the author of From the Land of Green Ghosts. His unlikely journey led him from a rural Padaung village where classroom learning was all but prohibited, to the halls of Cambridge, where he earned a BA in English Literature.
Saw Tar fills in as guest host in this episode about the role of education in Burmese society. As one delves deeper into the dynamics of the crisis in Myanmar, not only is keeping up with on-going developments important, but it’s also valuable to understand how we ended up here. The educational system of a country is charged with instilling knowledge and values in its younger generation, so it is a helpful lens to use when trying to understand the present shape of a society. Saw Tar examines how the failures of the school system have contributed to many of the ongoing problems we see today in Myanmar.
He first speaks to Terence Htoo. As Terrence spent half his schooling in Myanmar and the other half in the United States, he is able to provide a contrast between the two systems of education. Moreover, Terrence is ethnic Karen, so his perspective on the Burmanization policies of the government is especially valuable. He discusses how ethnic language, culture, and history have been consistently overlooked, minimized, and even intentionally written out of Burmese textbooks. Currently, Terrence is a lobbyist at the US Advocacy Coalition for Myanmar, where he has spent the better part of the last year lobbying for passage of the Burma Bill.
Next is Anne, an 18-year old who is currently attending an international school in Yangon. Very few Burmese are able to attend these more privileged institutions, but she fortunately was able to get a scholarship. Anne gives some insight into the curriculum and culture at these schools, and how they differ from the country’s public schools. She shares what she has gained from this experience, and how schools responded to the COVID pandemic and then the coup.
For more information on the topic of education in Myanmar, listeners are encouraged to review some episodes from the Insight Myanmar archive.
· Renowned journalist Swe Win traces his career of activism back to his shock at the universities being forced to shut down.
· Kyawt Thiri Nyunt, in the episode titled Drawing a Line Between Hope and Fear, shared how her teachers attempted to instill in students a sense of nationalistic and religious superiority.
· The German monk Bhikkhu Mokkhita describes the holistic monastic school he set up in Nyaungshwe during the democratic transition period in Up In Flames, and his horror at seeing it burned to the ground shortly after the coup.
· In How to Stop an Innovative Startup, Hla Hla Win and Yan Min Aung describe the augmented reality app they developed which would have revolutionized learning in Myanmar, but which came to a crashing halt with the coup.