Transcript: Episode #246: Spring University Myanmar

Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been reviewed by a human editor. As a result, certain words in the text may not accurately reflect the speaker's actual words. This is especially noticeable when speakers have strong accents, as AI transcription may introduce more errors in interpreting and transcribing their speech. Therefore, it is advisable not to reference this transcript in any article or document without cross-referencing the timestamp to ensure the accuracy of the guest's precise words.

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Host 1:03

I'm really excited to bring you the upcoming interview with a very special guest. You'll hear him discussing all the great and courageous work that he's currently engaged in. And if you feel inspired to help him continue these efforts, please consider making a donation earmark for his projects. Or you can give a general donation that will support the wider movement in Myanmar. Our ongoing support has been so very helpful and appreciated by many Burmese struggling during these dark days. Simply go to insight myanmar.org/donation to contribute today. Or stay tuned at the end of the episode to hear more options. Now let's hear from that guest himself.

Host 2:51

Today, we're joined by co author of the spring University, Myanmar. And we're going to be doing a deep dive on this incredible educational initiative that he and his colleagues have put forward. And I'm very excited about this episode. It's a very important topic. And I think as we talk about the ongoing conflict and crises and problems in Myanmar, we often focus on the things that are right in front of our eyes, the things that are burning, and destroy, and being and the atrocities happening in front of us as we should. And sometimes we lose sight of some of those structural problems that we might we might not be seen, but that are happening nonetheless and affecting millions and the population. And I think this is an example of one of those topics looking at education, and looking at what does it mean to have lost education, as we've seen with COVID? And then the coup and then what are the efforts being made to try to bring in education even in these most difficult circumstances. And like so much else that we're talking about in Myanmar, this involves a lot of innovative thinking ingenuity, being able to formulate a plan, and with which there are very few pathways and, and paths protocols in which you can look towards. And so this is some really exciting work being done. And we're going to dig into that in here, this whole story. So with that introduction, copertura. Thank you, thank you so much for coming on and joining and telling your story and also the story of spring University Myanmar.

Thura 4:30

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah.

Host 4:35

So as I said, let's get with your story first. And because your story leads to the story of spring University, Myanmar, I understand that there are some facts and details you need to leave out for your safety. So please feel free to do so. But I think one good way to start this story is to look at your involvement in student unions and university student unions and maybe You can flesh out the nature of this involvement with yourself personally. And then for those listeners who might not know so much about Myanmar, Myanmar history to trace back really the importance of student unions throughout Burmese history.

Thura 5:16

All right, absolutely. My involvement with all these activities and all these advocacy and activism efforts, stemmed from me joining the young or technological university and their students union. So it was previously called the Rangoon Institute of Technology are it and it is, in some sense, the birthplace of the previous coup and the previous, the previous revolution, in 1988. So it was at that time the military entered the military university campus with with like a SWAT team. And then they opened fire into the university, Student Dormitories and subsequently killed two students on that day. And that's how we had the Myanmar Human Rights Day on March 13. The day the students fail because of the military actions, but motivation and inspiration veterans unions go far back early as the 1920s, you know, during the British colonial rule, but that's when the student leaders, so students who go outside who will later become general outside and then go cold, new, and other prominent student leaders was starting to formulate, and start to become the forefront of the nationalist movement that will lead to the permitted independence in 1948. So there is a very strong legacy and a very strong position that the students unions have taken place in the Myanmar society, and especially among them in my youth community. So with that backdrop, the university, you know, the YT, you want to join that, after I finished my college, the university had been closed for the past 15 or 16 years, because of all these political actions. So one of the tactics that the military did to say, disperse these students unions or to like disintegrate these students, student led efforts was, you know, they started building new university campuses, way way outside the city centers very cut off from all these urban and and other economic activity. So they just very, they were just very isolated at that point. So when I joined, what to you, in that situation, it has been closed, all the students clubs and students unions had been banned. There were no student associations, student competitions or anything of that sort. So that was one when I first heard to join there, after a while, I think these first batch of students that were also met with this incoming opening up of Myanmar, in the Tucson an intense, there was metal with a wave of, of new opportunities, new initiatives and new programs coming into Myanmar, in that new chapter at that time. So that was how I was how it all began. And I'll be happy to talk more about like the digital activities that we did on the campus and what kind of approaches that we took, as we embarked on that journey.

Host 8:32

Yeah, I'd love to hear that. And I'd like to hear that with a preface of a question that I'm wondering as, you know, there's this real Agus history of the role that student unions have played first against their British aggressors and then against the Bomar military aggressors that student unions have so often been at the forefront of these changes. And I wonder as you became a university student, you know, being a university student is stressful, you have to your your, your future is at stake, you have to do well in your studies, you make lifelong friends, you're often living alone for the first time away from home, and coming into age. And so it's a lot to juggle all these things together. So as you were coming into university, to what extent were you looking at student unions, knowing the history this very important historical role they've had in your country and wanting to continue in that pathway? And to what extent were you just being a university student and and this was just somewhat part of the experience that you fell into.

Thura 9:41

Right? Right. Um, certainly that you're absolutely you're absolutely correct about you know, I'm having to balance those needs and just trying to make it trying to make the best out of you know, your your my college experience and my college life and then trying to do all these activities and all this politically. motivated work. At the same time, I think it is very common among I would say, those who grew up in Ghana in the early 2000s, you know, I want foreigners to herself, as I was growing up, during that time, the only access to information that I had was government, newspapers, you know, where all they showed was actually the the activities that the military generals were doing at that time. So they would go around, I don't know, building bridges and dams, and ostensibly, you know, trying to take care of the country, that undeveloped the country. And that was, for a long time, the only actual information that I had. But then when, when, when I actually grew up, and I was, you know, in my late teens, mid teens, I actually started to that story actually started to unravel right in front of me. And that's when I started to notice all these human rights atrocities are these injustices that they've done over the past years. And that that kind of kind of revelation also met with my exposure to the Students Union and the overall college life that I had, you know, the students do and as a Myanmar have always been a very influential figure in Australia for most British times. That's very likely one of the reasons that they won the first military coup happened in 1962. One of the first activities that they did was they actually bombed and destroyed the Students Union headquarters building in the University of Yangon, many students were killed in that action. And that was actually one of the very first encounters that, you know, the students unions had with the military regime, there will be subsequent student protests in around 1974, you know, with the EU 10 funeral for the UN Secretary General. And then there were there were that there have always been active students union personnel, even though the Students Union union activities were outlawed after that 1962 coup. And then in 1988, again, they were at the forefront of it. But of course, it was also their ability to mobilize the the larger general public, you know, it could be their family members, it could be industrial workers, civil servants, and other aspects of and other walks of life, that they they managed to mobilize and started calling for, for democracy, and to end the rule of this authoritarian regime. That was when it started out. And however, when I when I first joined, you know, after joining my own university, and actually we altogether, reestablish the Students Union, they were no one before us in the in the in the Canvas at that time, you were the were the first batch of students at the University welcomed in 15, or 16 years. So as the oldest cohort of students, I think it was in our second year in college, it was a six year engineering course, is actually quite common. All the engineering universities in our were six years program. So it actually gave us ample time to really get to know each other to really get things done and grow things and nurture things for for for a short amount of time. So our goal was, I think we were quite clear what we wanted to do, starting from that. So we really looked up to when we really wanted to be a part of this larger legacy of students union, resisting unlawful regimes since the since the previous times. So there was part of it. But there was also strong motivation among us to revitalize the campus. That was that was what we were approaching. So we were very political, and we were very involved with the reforms that was happening. So there was a national ceasefire agreement. There were other education reforms and social reforms that that USDP government was trying to do. So that was one part of it. The other part was, how can we make our students you know, more competitive, more innovative? How can we ensure that, you know, we can compete with students not just from across Myanmar, but with our peers from you know, from Southeast Asia? So that was our motivation. We tried to couple that. So there were a lot of advocacy that we were pushing, especially in university autonomy, higher education law that the National Education law was enacted in 2014. And that also sparked a new wave of student protests across the country. And it was, I think, one of the most sensitive time that the ustp regime because that student demonstrations were massive. They were actually trying to March, I think it started around in the, around the Mandalay area. And they actually marched all the way from there, to Yangon or whatever they try to, they were stopped midway around the around the PA city, and it was actually cracked down, brutally by the time. So we were, we were involved with that political debate of the National Education law, and the ongoing political reforms. At the same time, we also focused an equal amount of time on campus activity. So it wasn't always political, it was encouraging students to restart, you know, whatever interests, whatever interested them. So there were students during the English club, there were arts, club literature, clubs, music, sports, and other activities that will seem normal in other colleges and other countries or in even high schools and other countries. But it was a very new concept, even a taboo, for us to reach out doing that before all this, you know, the students, university students in Myanmar, their, their, their university life was mostly about, you know, the the ecologist were very far, they will take so much time, maybe a couple of hours on the road on the buses, and then they will attend classes. And after the colors are done, they will just straightly go back to their homes, because it will take another two hours to get back. But when we started this, you know, we were we had to touch students like we can't go by we should have been going back, we should be spending on spending more time on the campus, with each other and with other students as well to, to do these activities and improve ourselves and be a part of this larger reforms that is happening across the country. So that's how it came about. And I think we were I'm actually quite proud of how successful I was say that ended up, we actually got a specifically allocated time, I think the entire afternoon, have everyone's day was reserved for the student activities. We started to negotiate with the university administrators and start to get our own venue like, you know, the students union office, the tennis court, the basketball court, they were they were very generous donors from the alumni. And by the end, like when up until COVID happens, I think we had one of the most vibrant campuses, the university campuses across the country. And our students have also been well exposed and well connected through all these activities.

Host 17:42

Thank you for that overview. And I think, as I listened to it, I think other listeners too, might have a similar feeling, it definitely brings up to what degree those of us coming from other backgrounds and other countries kind of take for granted. This freedom of free association of being able to come together with who we want and do what we want even things that are not even so political, even things that are just innocuous have a language club or a some other hobby that we that we want to come together and do how these were freedoms that were only coming along as you came of age. And I also in looking at this, at at these these university student unions as they came to come, it reminds me as well, I was an American Center trainer, when, before the transition period, and the American Center was this there were there were several years there where it was this very special kind of precious place where it in some ways kind of substituted the possibilities that weren't found elsewhere in terms of book clubs and other movie nights and other kinds of events, concerts, all kinds of things, of course, the political as well. And the covert as well, all of that. But certainly the the activities of just being able to come together and have free access of information. This is this is just one particular place and one particular city that only a small number relatively of people had access to. So as you're describing this development of the budding university culture in the transition period, I assume as it starts to take place, I in some ways I can't help but recall this little prism of activity I was seeing at the American Center and how wonderful it is to think about these, these things starting to open up and to blossom and to have those opportunities and if I could just share one anecdote I've shared this before this has nothing to do with education but for some reason it just popped in my mind. I remember during the transition period, at one point I went they were holding these weekly farmers markets at Kindaichi Park and when and you go there and it was kind of like a farmers market you see anywhere there is you know or organic produce and someone who was making their own ice cream and can Bucha and cheese and yogurts and just just kind of all the stuff that people were bringing together. And I was just kind of marveling that, you know, just several years back all these people that are now coming to this farmers market, whether they're young Burmese, or whether they're foreigners who haven't don't have the institutional history, they're coming into this completely normal farmers market that you would find anywhere else. And just kind of enjoying what the different booths have. And I was enjoying it too. And I would, but I would just have, I would just be struck, because I was there years before the transition happened when it was still a military regime is the country you grew up in. And I was just kind of thinking like, do how many of these people know like, what a miracle this is that this is happening? You know how there's nothing political about this, but just the free association of entrepreneurship, and people coming and enjoying different things, people being able to follow their passions, both in terms of what they produced and consumed, having variety having access to outside, outside knowledge and outside people and international connections. And somehow, that memory of being in this farmers market just kind of just kind of came to my mind, as I was thinking about the the university culture that you and you co you and your cohorts were trying to establish?

Thura 21:23

Yes, certainly. Yeah. I think what the example that you gave, that's actually very diverse, actually, what happened with us and what we were having, what we were thinking in the back of our head, you know, now, in hindsight, I also feel like, what there were a lot of political speeches and political assets that we were pushing for, but I think it was those, you know, little ordinary moments that we had on the campus or outside the campus among these daily activities that really show like how strong and how normalized these, I would say the the democratic practices are. And I think that also kind of pushed us into other directions too, without without being very, so they kind of pushed us into other directions to unintentionally. So we were very, we had our own vision where our own political vision of you know, what the students unions could have done. And it wasn't a national association, though, like when, you know, turn around son and his student leaders first emerged, it was because there was only one university, they were technically the national Students Union, like, like, at the national level, that that kind of national efforts still exist to this day. And they have been, they have done a remarkable job throughout their history. But in our case, it was pretty much focus as a university students union, we had a vision and we had constant engagement with other national policies and other like Comrades, I will say, of students union, but our effort also been very campus focused. But that also opened up the doors. So we were, I would say, pragmatic in a sense that, you know, I mean, it was at a time of, like, loud calls for national reconciliation and how we could you no transition from that tight, tightly controlled, isolated, military regime to a more, it was a quasi democracy. You know, there were lots of limitations, the military has reserved a quarter of the, of the parliament seats, they control the important ministries, we were aware that of all those limitations of that version democracy that we were given into that we were sort of, like, taught to be pragmatic. So one of the examples would be that when we started out, we didn't get permission to reestablish the Students Union. So um, for some time, I think for like, 15 months, we had to go with a name students network. So it was the way to use students network, and I think some of our students unit comrades from other campuses, I think they, they, they, they, they made fun of us, you know, because we couldn't get get past that university rule. But eventually, it was overturned. And we actually had a referendum among the among the student body to change the name to transient and officially, but that was after the NLD won the 2050 elections, and it was pretty safe and secure that, you know, they would be the next Julian regime. So only after that the university administration agreed to like change the indigenous union. So that was one of it. The other aspect of this was that because we had to start everything from scratch, you know, there were nothing and then we had to formulate we had to just just be creative along the way. So that kind of trained has to be, I would say, entrepreneurial, not in a business sense. But in the way we approach things we were references, you know, that we drew from, from previous decades of Trans Union work inside the country. But there were also other did national references that we drew from one funny example would be the the big thing in 2010 would be Glee, the TV series. So we actually really loved it wasn't high school. But you know, we loved how vibrant all these kids were doing. They were there were singing contests, they were trauma, there were so many freedom that they were that they were given, you know, as they grew and become an adult and try to embark on their journeys. So we envision that kind of thing. And we started new things. And we tried to fundraise we were given, I mean, the university didn't give us any protests at all until alarm like 2019. So before that, it was all voluntary, everyone was equally motivated. And we were all and we could feel that, you know, because of the transition period, things were opening up lies were generally speaking, at least in the urban cities, were getting better, you know, more income international companies coming in. So we could also feel that larger than life motivations that we were a part of. So we were very careful with that we were also even a bit criticized for focusing too much on this canvas activities. And, you know, not focusing more on the more on the overall political changes of what's happening. But we I am very proud of what what it has done, and what it has taught me and everything that I continue to use, to this day, those exposure and networks, TAO to start things from scratch, how to sustain it, and how to scale it up. And also you know how to be pragmatic in challenging times.

Host 27:08

And I think it's good to dig in a bit to that environment, you after the 2015 elections. And LD and Aung San su chi came to power. This was a start of the real transformation that started to take place in the country before the coup. And there was an article in The Diplomat that was referring to this period, there's a line I want to quote in there and then ask your thoughts on it. The line in the article said, quote, The National League for democracies run government had initiated a well supported reform process to lift Myanmar schools and universities, out of the mire of under underfunding politically motivated repression and general systematic torpor, and quote, that's quite a bold thing to write. And to describe this effort, there's national effort being done in a political level, to be able to bring back the educational system to the prominence that it had before the military really destroyed it and gutted it and all the ways that we know that it did, and it develop this national education strategic plan. And so I wonder if you can go over those looking at a broader outlook for education that was happening nationally at the time, up until the coup, it's a completely different story, what happened after the coup? But in those years, what did you see the NLD was trying to do with education and what did they accomplish?

Thura 28:35

Right. Oh, that was a very interesting statement. And I think I haven't come across that in a while. I agree, I think is quite bold. And probably I think it was written in the in the, in the honeymoon phase of Dasu. And the NLD. Well, I think there were very strong indicators that, you know, I mean, they spent so many years fighting for this freedom, and for the people, you know, to, to get this opportunity. So I should hope, hope that that was what they intended to do. And there are some indicators of it. I will say, right off the the most visible thing that happened was, I think, just a more interconnectedness. And the, the ease of communication that we had, with the all the way up to the Minister of Education, I will say, because previously, you know, we were we have been shown by government officials, we have been almost outlawed. But with with the new regime assuming power in 2016. They, they were efforts to really communicate with us all the way from the top to the insurance organizations, and trying to incorporate some of our recommendations into university policies and eventually the ministry policies. So say They, it took a while. It was, it was a process. But after a couple of years into the NLD regime, some prominent examples would include the students union representatives were invited to attend the University Senate meetings. So previously, it was, you know, unheard of the students never had a role in in formulating university policies. But I think it was in 2018. Around that time that it was normalized. It wasn't across all universities, I think those campuses with a strong the students, union establishments and a strong faculty that could facilitate these discussions, so stringent, were trying to getting invited to attend the Senate meetings, be involved with the university budget, the other side to give out these more student led project activities as official university activities. So that was why what was happening in those campuses are the larger picture, we could also see that the NLD tried to push for more spending towards the education sector. I think it grew close to 10%. By the time they were asked it in in late 2020. And I Well, electronic commerce so much about the basic education, I was involved with it somehow, but I wasn't leading many of the activities there. And I will say there were so some shortfalls regarding that too, because the national education strategic plan, maybe it will stem from the NLD supposition. At that time, we didn't see as much of a say dialogue and as much negotiations and you know, reconciliation happening with our say, the ethnic groups, it could be just ethnic organizations, you know, the big organizations or, or just with the general, ethnic youth communities, for example, they are they have been trying to reform the education, the national curriculum for basic education. So for other subjects, that's fine, you know, for science for English, mathematics, biology, you know, the those are okay. And we gone from those really appalling black and white textbooks and student teachers just telling us to regurgitate, well, we have learned from these texts, to very colorful student centered, fun classroom activities, and they actually train on of basic education teachers for that, but I think they could have, they should have gone far as to like reforming the history curriculum, because the if you would look at that Burmese history textbook, it has been very biomass centric and parameterised. And you know, it was those glorified pyramids change winning battles over these ethnic kingdom and stuff, I think it was a wrong narrative to begin with. And there have been lots of historical inaccuracies that they put up in those history textbooks. And I think it could have been resolved at that time. And the universities, another good thing that they brought brought about was our say, more opportunities and exposure for these university students. So as we were doing our own internal like campus activities, we actually saw so many companies coming in, you know, to offer internships, to have a fellowship to go abroad. There were the American Center was also expanding, and there was increased support for regional international scholarships. So I think that's those are those exposures are actually very important to build a new generation of, say, youth leaders. And these are the same people that are now actively involved with the spring revolution, either doing, you know, university or health care or fundraising efforts, or simply just picking up guns and getting trained in the jungle or maybe working at ethnic armed organizations or working for the N ug, in this resistance movement. Maybe one. One final flaw, you know, that we could point out and have the minister of the Minister of Education at the time was they actually held because the Minister of Education was actually a bureaucrat, I will say, he wasn't a politician, he didn't run on any political platforms. So there was a lot of deeply entrenched, I would say problematic narratives going around his head, because he has been quoted saying that, you know, if some of these if Some of those teachers don't cooperate or don't live up to the standards, you know, the punishment would be to to transfer them from Yangon and Mandalay from the big cities to the outskirt. area. So they saw that as a punishment, like a locating a teacher to a school or a university and the frontier areas and ethnic regions, or even a ma remote areas, low Sekine, or EOD was seen as a punishment. And that says a lot about, you know, how they consider students and young people there. So I think it was a deeply rooted issue. Not just that, but other things. You know, after decades of military repression, and urbanization, I think that that has rooted in that. So there was constant battle of constant tug of war between the students, union communities, and the university and the ministry leadership. So the only good thing was that, unlike other regimes, they were open channels, they wouldn't just shut out or just shut us down. That were they understand the word cause and immense uproar from the general public as well as the student community. So there was dialogue, there was some kind of reconciliation of our own version among these education providers.

Host 36:27

So now let's paint a picture of the coup has happened February 1 2021. And it's and everyone as we know, just responds in it however they can at the time to resist to be able to form networks and everything else. And before we go into your response, and what you did, let's look at the educational scene. It's this is February 2021, COVID, is still ramped that around the world and in Myanmar, it's disrupting education across the world, including the United States, which is, is itself there a topic of conversation about the lack of socializing that kids are doing and going to the classroom and having to rely on remote forms of learning. But then there's this coup. So talk about for an average Myanmar youth living during this period of pandemic, and then coup, talk about what they faced in terms of an interrupted education, what they went through as well as educationally speaking, what does it mean for a student who should be in school? And is missing classes for months or years at a time? What does that do to the intellectual development of that student as well, as we could say, the intellectual capacities and potential of the entire youth of the country?

Thura 37:51

Yeah. So I think that that will begin with the first COVID case that happened, you know, you were right about, you know, it was challenging to remote, remote learning, virtual learning, it was a challenge of its own at that time. So the first COVID case in Myanmar happened in late March 2020. So that was when the universities were all shut down, and all the schools were closed off temporarily. So when the coup happened, in February, it was almost a year of virtual learning among the students and the teachers. I think that the teachers and faculty members had a harder time adapting to virtual learning, you know, trying to learn soon trying to learn these all these digital and cloud based tools to effectively teach online, I think students really were familiar and it was they just naturally slipped into the online learning space. So when the coup happened in February of 2021, the universities were still closed, the campuses were empty. There were just a few administrative staff and not even faculty members present in the campuses most of the time, I still can't figure out whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. It could have been a different case, if the universities were just running with full operation at that time, because that was what happened in 1988. And, and to attend to an Eastern in 2007, you know, when the Saffron Revolution happened, so we can imagine if it had happened with a full universities operating, I think the protest movements might have been a bit bigger, maybe even more powerful than then they were in our version of the timeline. So as as those were closed, they didn't stop the students and you know, it is just normal individuals to come together. So when I say normal individuals, you know, when you see those, like countless protesters at those rallies in both cities and you know, rural areas, those who are not traditionally active in the political debate. I mean, many of my friends who didn't couldn't care less about what we do in these campus live campus activities and, and our dialogue with the Ministry and the National Education law, you know, they were really at the forefront of these protests, they were marching every day with us. And we also joined hands with fellow students union across the country, there were those were very organized. And there were also national level calls for, you know, to, to, to, to encourage the international community to come together to support this. And then that was when it happened. So for an ordinary individual for an ordinary young person, I think it meant, firstly, are they what they were referred with what they were responding to, was the injustice that the coup demonstrate, you know, it, it wasn't as much they were really rooting for Dhawan San su chi or the NLT. Or really rooting for those values, per se, you know, the human rights, the human rights abuses and other media freedom or all those like democratic principles. I think the main motivation was injustice, because I know the, with all these flaws and imperfections, they won fair and square and the 2020. Many of these students voted for them, because otherwise, they had a landslide. They knew you know, all those limitations, but they actually voted for the for them anyway. So when this coup, you know, happen and all their mandates, were overturned, I think, you know, it was it was very infuriating for many people as on an individual level, then, of course, I think they were all started to expose to a more political, ideological shift. I think previously, everyone was quite in, in the real estate spectrum, as the, you know, what the military occupied this and this and that, but we got this anyway. So you know, let's just make a deal out of it. But with that, I think there were more efforts, I think the general students ideology was abruptly shifted, maybe more towards left, I would say, you know, because it was, it was common for revolutions to be more leftist and more like that kind of doctrine to organize the masses, and to have a turnover common rally among, among all these demonstrators. So that was what was happening on the streets. And when they were called to join the civil disobedience movement. I think it happened a few days after the coup happened. And that was, from an a legit letter that he wrote road lead on the days leading up to the coup. So with the civil disobedience movement, I think the students were also very visible, and were at the forefront of it alongside doctors, teachers, and other government workers. So it was actually a very big decision for them, like for students to decide, because for many of them, say, for engineering schools for for my university, I've graduated, by the time that was I wasn't a student there. But for a senior student in his final year at general, like engineering colleges, they have attended these schools for the past five years, it wasn't really that they were super interested in these topics, were just the amount of time invested in all these things. So they understand that if they join CDM, they'd have to leave all of that behind for because generally, no other university in Southeast Asia will recognize prior learning credit, so if they wanted a degree, they knew they had to start all the way from scratch all the way from their first year. By the time they were now 20 to 23. So they knew all too well, what the risk were in joining the CTN they also knew all too well, that this could have been a very powerful punch to the military. And, and and it was because millions of students, we will we did a survey and more than, like nearly three quarters of the university faculties were dismissed for their involvement with with the CDM and the matriculation exam takers dropped by us by as much as 80% compared to pretty good figures. So that that that motivation was going on at that time. And I will say the CDM and, and dropping out of college actually helped them intellectually, because of course, you know, there were technical knowledge that the university was offering if they were learning in a certain discipline, engineering, social sciences or medicine or finances or anything, but the intellectual awareness that they got from this would be, I would say, a better understanding In an appreciation of ethnic cultures and ethnic group activities that have been waging a war against the military regime for the past several decades. So previously, you know, those ethnic groups were viewed as rebels and just trying to destabilize the country. But with this coup and the subsequent lethal crackdowns of the military on peaceful protesters, everyone was equally aware that, you know, this is not toddler regime that they could, they could make a deal with, and that led many, many students to, I would say, to pursue an interest in all these, you know, different ideologies, different approaches on how the auto revolution works. And viewing the world in a in a in a bigger picture of, you know, how seminars, incidents have happened in the region, what the international superpowers were doing to alleviate all these in justices and human rights abuses.

So intellectually speaking, I think they were more generally like, intelligent, and they were more well connected to the outside world than they were previously just minding their own businesses, trying to get a degree and make make make a career out of it. But of course, I think there were tangible, I think they call it the, the learning loss. So you know, I think it's more obvious, I think it's more common among younger learners. But I think it's also relevant for university students to, like when a when a child misses a few years of learning, and they returned to campuses, after a while, they couldn't just pick up where they lost where the last study, you know, they had to, they had to do to give them time to make up for the time that the that they haven't been exposed to a learning environment that they weren't challenged. intellectually. So I think there was tangible learning loss that the students went through. And it was also difficult that the, the option they had was online learning, so many subjects weren't available to be delivered through online channels, to engineering subjects, other vocational topics and other hands on activities, and maybe even medicine. They could teach the lectures online, but it for the practical components, there wasn't anything that could be offered. The social sciences were more relevant in that space, though, because, you know, all they needed was, was a laptop and a screen and an A note pad, and they could they could have learned the entire spectrum of topics. So the, for an average student, I think it was a time of challenging themselves intellectually, politically, and it has been sustained movements. So far, the hunter run schools and university campuses are still nowhere near the prequel levels, partly, and now partly because not because not only because of political motivations right now, but other reasons such as economic factors and lack of faculties simply. And it was also a time for the students for these individuals to become a more active citizen in the sense that they were, of course, later drawn into the, into the armed struggle and subsequent anti regime activities that are followed.

Host 48:24

Right. And I think that leads us to your story and your involvement. And I think what we see when society breaks down well, we probably see a lot of different things. But what I saw happening in Myanmar at this time was that once this has really just broken down, and there's no roadmap for what's left, I saw a number of people trying to figure out who they were in this new world. And as we've seen, since we've seen some people gravitate towards going into the jungle and becoming PDF fighters, others have become online activists and have spoken to those who speak English have tried to bring the story to the international community, people have worked on defections, and tried to encourage those to those in the military to leave others have looked at volunteering for the UCC, or some part of the UG medicine on and on and on. There's people come to find their place of I don't like this new regime, this this illegal military takeover, and I want to do something to be able to make their job more difficult and show them that we don't consider them the legitimate rulers. And once everything has broken down, we see different people starting to well first figure out do Am I courageous enough to do this, you know, do I care enough to do this? And am I going to do this longer than a month when all my friends are doing it? And it's just kind of cool and I'm motivated or, you know, how am I going to sustain this but then over the course of months and years, we see these activists and communities and organizations that are left still standing that have found their way and that have seen this is, this is how I'm going to show my displeasure. This is how I'm going to try to oust this military dictatorship and bring an elected government back into play. This is how I'm going to support my people that are suffering and to make sure their story gets heard. And people go in these different directions, according to their background. So you went in a direction of looking to establish a university, which we haven't gotten into yet in which we will now the spring University, Myanmar, but maybe you can first talk about how were you personally impacted when this coup hit? And as everyone is kind of scrambling to figure out who am I in this new world? And and then once I realized, I want to, I do want to step forward in this, this new environment, this dangerous environment, what am I going to do? What is the best use of my particular resources, to be able to help my country and my people, you obviously went towards the pathway, not just education, but have a really revolutionary and innovative educational initiative, which we'll get into. So tell that story.

Thura 51:12

So when myself and my friends were getting involved with, you know, anti military activities and anti coup efforts, I think, I don't know about many other people at large. But I think like we weren't really thinking far ahead. And to echo what, what what you said earlier, I think like we, we understood that, you know, this, this might not go well. And the other days of the coup, there was still hopes that, you know, they could be overturned, in a short time, because there was still a lot of infrastructures and a lot of like governing structures of the previous regime, you know, we were with them for the past, say 10 years since the age since the since the ustp. Government. So there were hopes that I think the hope was still there throughout February, and even up to the point of the military, literally cracking down civilians, and the protests were even larger, and morphed into other forms. But I think it was clear around April, among the youth communities, and at least to me, that this thing is not going to go away anytime soon. We don't we don't know how long it's going to be. It could be a year, it could be two, it could be 10 years. The last time it happened in agitating. I think it lasted for like 22 years. So we were vaguely aware of it. But we weren't really preparing ourselves. I mean, I wasn't really preparing myself, you know what I'm gonna do this for the next 15 or 20 years, no matter how long it took, I think my motivation Python was, you know, this is what I can do, this is what needs to be done. And we can see that it's what have really tangible effects, on the at least, the legitimacy of the regime and to serve and to help the ongoing efforts by CDM professors and UTM students. So spring University, Myanmar was established in so it was officially launched in 24th of May 2021. So, but we have we have been planning to launch this maybe around a month earlier. So right after the tangent Festival in April, which was not celebrated. So it was at that time, me and my. So it wasn't my own effort. We had a, we had a we had a few co founders that have helped with us, and who has continued to commit commit to SVM to this day. So by that time, the CDM movement was already going full swing, they first joined it in February, and it's now a couple of months that they have been CDM. And the crackdown hasn't been quite obvious yet. And the CDM students were also in full swing. So it wasn't the CDM call that we were calling for. But our approach was that, you know, there have been so there have been decentralized fundraising efforts by students, unions and other student communities are among the alumni community. There were some I think it was common around the time to see on Facebook. Hello, I am a CDM Professor, I'm a CDM instructor, I'm a CDM student from this and this and that I am selling all these permits, snacks or salads or just some small businesses that he was trying to do sell online, to make a living and to donate these earnings to, you know, to to to those areas in need. So it was in that environment that we came in. And I think the I would say the founding revenue model of three University Myanmar, was that we needed to sustain this evidence of BDS movement we needed to we needed to continuously support the CDM professors. So They don't have to go back to work under the regime, we have to provide alternative means of learning for the students so that, you know, they don't have to go back to those Hunter controlled campuses. So our model was, you know, what we'll bring together as many student professors as we can, and work with them to create and develop new courses to develop online courses, we will launch them. And we as a way as a means of financing these, we will ask for students to donate in the form of a tuition fee, the fees are quite low. From the start, I think our lowest one was around 15,000 chart around $5. And our most expensive class would have been around 60,000 charts. So I think it was around like $20 As of today's rates, so and it was it was quite, it was met with a very overwhelming response from the from the public, and we weren't not really expecting that. I think in our first year of operation we serve, we had over 8000 or 9000, students sign up student like enrollments in our in, in our courses. But one thing to note at that time, though, we were we weren't exactly the only education provider, there have been similar efforts by other groups of people on could be students union, though it was Trans Union background, and also the private sector background trying to initiate the alternative learning platforms, I'm at that time.

Host 56:38

Yeah, so that's really exciting to go and launch this and you and to be able to find an alternative way for students to find their education and for educators to be able to give and serve back. And so you call it spring University, Myanmar. And I wonder if you can go into that name, what, first of all, spring obviously has a connotation of spring revolution, maybe you can describe where that connotation of the spring revolution fits into the educational institution you wanted to create. And then what you mean by university, this is because you're you're calling it University, just months after the coup, and of course, it's grown. It's gotten stabilized. It's got networks and connections with institutions around the world. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But just in terms of the creation of it, you're calling it a university. And so describe the thinking that went into the nomenclature that you chose for the name of this? Oh,

Thura 57:39

right. That's that's a very good question. And I haven't really reflected on so since we started since we finalized on this name. Well, I must admit that I think we were a bit too ambitious, calling this a university. Because, you know, it holds us in way, especially among the Myanmar communities. And we were far from being a full fledged University, we're still far from being becoming a full fledged University. Although we have grown. I think the motivation behind that was it was more catered towards the spring ideals that, you know, education should be accessible and inclusive of all groups of people and all minorities, and that it is the education the educated populace should be the foundation of the new federal democracy, Democratic Union, that we are that we have been trying to forge. But we went ahead with a name anyway, partly because the acronym would have been su M. And we were trying to look for, for ways to really reach out to as many young people and as many fundraising efforts as we can. And when we started SLM, in the, in the early days, we actually made it a priority to always be connected to or at least, always facing the ups and downs of the pro democracy movement. And we have adopted many, so we have adopted many campaigns and many programs designed to reflect the ongoing momentum of the spring revolution, for example, like when the annual GE announced its DD, I think it was in September 2021. We actually changed many of our program designs and our and our timeline and our activities and and our work structure to accommodate you know what, whatever could have happened, whatever could have whatever could this announcement could have led to. So we're throwing University Myanmar, I think we were a bit premature. We were a bit premature with naming a university. But I will say we He had legit university professors who were you know, professors and then Myanmar colleges before and the students who were serving or university level students, and that the the in the ideal situation you would grow into a full fledge degree awarding institution at one point. So we were quite thrilled about that. And another approach that influenced us was our say, the a new way of education that that people were starting to experiment with, I think with the with the, with the intellectual and the ideological shift that the people and the student experienced with on in the aftermath of the coup. And then there were also many questions, you know, traditionally very hard questions that people normally don't ask, were being asked and around the education sector, like, why are we doing why are we spending four years or six years in this college? Just to get this degree that I won't use it anyway, for my career? Like, how can we better educate the young people so that it matches their interest, and it also serves, and it's also based on a functioning economic model. So like, not entirely subsidized by the government, or not entirely paid for by the parents of the students, either by taking out loans, you know, like, what what kind of economic models would work for the academia? And what kind of delivery would work for the students to actually learn things to unlearn and relearn things? So there were many, you know, difficult questions being asked around. And that is also one of the approaches that we've had, I believe, and we, we believe that education, you know, should it is, it isn't limited to degree awarding, like multi year programs. We believe that there are more democratized forms of learning and teaching, and that and that all those credentials, doesn't always have to come from that kind of authority. So I think we're also influenced by that by those questions. And by by, by those approaches.

Host 1:02:14

That's, that's great. And it's, it's really just astounding what you're describing, because you're talking about producing an educational environment and curriculum and methodology that is also sound business, business, business wise, with a business model. And let us not forget, it's also happening in a wartime situation where we'll get into this later, but the military has called your university a terrorist organization. So you are really balancing so many things going on all at once. And in some ways, let's stay in the education topic for now, because there's a lot to cover with what you did. And I'm very interested in this because I came to me and my personally as a teacher trainer. So for the first several years that I was in Myanmar, my professional job was to I came from a background of training teachers around the world and studying teacher methodology, and particularly looking at student centered and adult learning theories and bringing that to Myanmar after many years of doing that around doing that in other environments. And so my entry into the country and culture was really understanding what traditional education was, and how it operated, and how this style of learning we were bringing, how we how to bring that about and knowing what that local environment already was. And so as you're looking at the work that you're doing, in bringing in really having a clean slate, you know, really being able to start from scratch to look at what are the problems actually, as I'm saying this, I'm thinking it's not unlike what's going on with the federal charter, you know, it's really empowering and, and liberating to be able to design your own federal charter and constitution. It's also you know, overwhelming, and, you know, what am I not thinking of, and what do I get wrong? And what what do I have to know to do this? So it's those things together and I'm sure that your work with the curriculum and with the education and the methodology and everything else was probably not too similar to that in one sense it's very liberating and empowering to think well let's do away with the old and we can really we don't have to be tied down to these all these incremental reforms and traditionalist and patriarchal and brahmanas ation type of thinking. We can throw this all out the window and we can make a new what educate we can define ourselves. What does education mean what how do you learn what do you learn? How are you taught? Who are you bringing into teach and what's the curriculum? That it's it's really empowering to think that you can do this yet I'm sure it's also overlooked. I mean, for what is this, this, these these keys we've just been given? Am I do I? Do I really feel qualified to get in this car and start driving? But you know, no one else? If not me, then who else? So, you know, let me take the keys and see what happens. But you know, as maybe if you can describe, first of all, just how you approach this task, you know, emotionally, mentally, what your feeling was, as you started doing this massive work? And then what what you did, what came of it, you know, how, how, and what did you decide was going to be in the curriculum, the methodology, the, the structure of what you were going to be doing educationally speaking?

Thura 1:05:46

Right, right. Certainly. I mean, you know, when you said earlier, I mean, I think you were really preaching to the choir, like, Am I really qualified? And I think if that question has come come up since the day we started, and that's something that I still question myself to this day, because, you know, I really didn't want to be sort of, in the, in the leading position of this, this incredible platform, we actually listed certain names someone, you know, a few people that are more experienced and more more connected to the wider, you know, academic donors to assume the role of this, you know, in leading the university, we approached them, but they, but they weren't available. So at one point, we decided, you know, what, it's just me and this team, and, you know, we're going to make this work. So I think in the back of my head, I think, you know, what, what I learned and grew, I think the Students Union years of my undergrad, I think those were really formative, you know, that really taught taught taught me to how to start doing from scratch and, and how to deal with problems that would come along with it. And one thing that I forgot to mention one, earlier was, you know, as I was doing the students, union activities, and the campus, outside the canvas, I was also doing a lot of social enterprises and youth engagement activities. And those were all very similar in nature, as in like, we had to start from scratch, because previously the, in Myanmar before, you know, 2010 2012, there was very limited, um, civic space, you know, for civil society organizations, for youth communities to come together. And it was really unheard of, for young people, you know, to to work on a project together like on on like a social enterprise. So I did a number of those and scholarship counseling, education support, mentoring, career consultations, mental health, agriculture, so there was a world so it's so su M, wasn't really, you know, my my very first project, I mean, it would have been a disaster, if there was, but that social entrepreneurship and the Students Union experiences really shaped how I approach things and how I look at this. So I think the biggest question when we were doing this was, as you pointed out, like, are we doing the right thing? You know, is this the right approach? Is this going to, you know, is this going to be effective? So, I think the mantra that we went through, would be that. So what those years of, you know, students union activity and social entrepreneurship activity taught me was that, you know, in approaching the big questions and big confusion and uncertainties, I think the approach was, number one. Whatever you pick, is right, as in like, I don't know, what other doctrines would have taught, I would have prepared in this situation. But you know, when we restarted the Students Union and started our own social enterprises, we we knew there were many options, there were a lot of potential, and all of those options, and we just have to make up our mind and you know, just pick one. And we really, we also need to own that decision to like, why we went with it, why we went with that route. And whatever comes with it, that way, we could always think about, you know, the data path like what have we done differently to these things, and how could it be better so we can always imagine about it, but I think the the approach was wide, the approach was quite practical. So just pick one and stick to it. And it's also an iterative process. It's not is is that the management approaches and the overall philosophy is generally a living organism or a living document, you know, we keep updating and we keep reflecting on what was was Urgent on the ground, and we have to adapt to we have to, we have to respond to it. But of course, without compromising our own, like the core foundational principles that we are trying. So at the core of Su M's, we're not really trying to put the students back into classes, we are essentially trying to tackle this regime and no surprise, they called us to terrorist organization. But yeah, at the core of it, we did this because these young people need to be engaged and sustained. And we couldn't just let them go and you know, be whatever they want it to be out in the field. Like it, there needs to be a strong sense of community and interactions and debates among them. And another reason would be that, you know, if, like, these young people are, at that point, and to this point, so far, they have been extremely motivated politically, socially, they're outspoken, even if they weren't proud of the coup, they were now and they were now reading up and they were now yeah, really hyped, or like they wanted to make a difference. And in this new environment, under the, under this military regime, so unlike how many times were we wishing, you know, in, in other countries, that they had a more active electorate, or a more active youth population that are really invested in the country's affairs, so we have that we really wanted to maintain that, through that. So the so the first point of my first solution to all these big challenges of doubting ourselves and, you know, trying to pick like, what was the best for us, you, I think we won with that approach of, you know, what pick what we can do what's the best? What seems to be the best solution at this point. And we went along with it. And we make changes and tweaks and iterations around along the process. And it's still ongoing. We have really, like, solidified in some sense. But we're still very fluid, we're still very, we will try. And we're trying to maintain this dynamic work environment and this dynamic planning approaches, as opposed to our say, the traditional nonprofit organizations approach where they run with annual cycles, and they don't have much leeway on the new changes. So that'd be the first one. The second approach that we always had, would be that, you know, learning is not limited to those classroom lectures. And to that extent, in that in that teacher and student to the instrument interactions, because most of the things that I learned, I mean, I went to an engineering schools, but look what I'm doing right now. So like, most of the things that I learned that were those I learned outside the classroom, you know, through my students, union colleagues, through dealing with the university administrators through Yeah, just dealing with a whole bunch of people outside of the classes, trying to find your persona, trying to find your interests and trying to find a find a voice for yourself, like, how do I position myself? Where do I fit in? And what's my best shot and in all these opportunities, I mean, I'm not really discrediting, like, you know, what the teachers are teaching and what's being delivered in the classes, I think it has its own merits, and especially for like more technical like, like technological and vocational, like disciplines. I think it's more important. But you know, we I've always believed that learning is everywhere. And all we need is to create a nurturing environment, where they are free to express their opinions where they could interact with each other freely with no discrimination and with no sidelining of any agenda. And we it's still a process, it's still not complete. But I think we've come further than what has what has been offered before. For example, our faculties are rather decentralized. It's not completely autonomous and on their own, but we will let the faculties decide what they would like to teach. And they will propose to us and we could work out a plan, you know, to announce the course open admissions, open houses, to engage with the students. And so these are more rather rather decentralized.

Host 1:14:31

Yeah. So can you give me an example of the type of curriculum and courses that have chosen to be offered?

Thura 1:14:38

Right? So at SUM, over the past two and a half years, we have been piloting so many different products, different courses, online classes, hybrid programs, and also like diploma awarding programs. So we started with our so we started with the math Micro credential. So short courses are run from, like five to 10 weeks. So these are just micro credential, single subject single topic offered by the CDM professors. This was formulated in a way to sustain the revenue, you know, from the students those donations to continually support the city and professors who are teaching on those courses. So it was its own economic model that was to an extent on self sustainable. So we have maintained that and we have courses over over a wide range of disciplines from engineering science, computer technologies, to the social sciences, humanities, languages, education law, and one of our power pioneering courses will be the language courses on ethnic languages. So we've offered several ethnic languages so it's a Karen PoKaren Shan Chin Rakhine, Chin Mon and Kayin, I think. So these ethnic qualities, ethnic language courses, I mean, they have been around for a while, but quite limited to their own ethnic territory. So in Kachin areas, they will teach Kachin to, you know, to the children, and so on. But with these ethnic language courses, we were trying to create a mix of both the Burmese speaking students and other ethnic speaking students to really interact with each other and learn these new language altogether and to promote their appreciation of these ethnic cultures and identities. So that was a short process. And then, after several months, we started to offer graduate diploma programs. So those are designed to be a graduate level, they will run for like six to nine months. And so far, we have like 10, diplomas at SU M right now. So the diploma program in Human Rights Studies diploma in governance and public administration, diploma in teaching, and so on. So we, we continue to provide this diploma. And now with support from some international universities, we now have an MOU or an ongoing collaboration with around with 11 universities across the world. So from Australia and New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, and from from from the US. So some of those universities have offered to recognize some of these diploma programs, and even a word like credit, graduate credits to those who complete these programs successfully. So we hope to scale up in that sense, and we hope that many of our programs will recognize more and more. So these two programs will be the will be the core courses that we offer. But there are also other means of delivery that we have been running on. So with the with the military, like cutting off the internet and mobile connections in though in the conflict affected areas, we started to offer other analog, our say analog technology. So we have radio lectures, that we partner with mizzima radio to broadcast every week. So it runs on am and it's really picked up by by a pretty large audience. So we have those radio lectures, we have hybrid programs, where we've come up with this SUm box technology. So it is based on Raspberry Pi, it could transmit its own Wi Fi without needing the internet coverage or the mobile connection. So what we will do is we will you know design this box, the hardware and all by ourselves in in Thailand. And then we would upload all these the the entire learning portal into that box and now the learning content and silence of the videos, lecture slides, quizzes, presentations, assignments, submissions and all of it so the entire learning portal of Spring Univeristy Myanmar (SUM) is an is uploaded into that box, and we will deliver those boxes to Sagaing Chin Kachin Karenni and Karen. where the firings are most most intense, where the displacements are the highest and those young young people don't have other means of learning anything. So the box once it is it has electricity once it is plugged into a socket or through a power bank. They will transmit its own Wi Fi so they could either just sit around with a projector and learn as a communal activity. Or it could be like a mobile library where students is where the smartphone could come come around, get connected to that Wi Fi, and browse all the learning content in the learning portal, it wouldn't connect to the larger the internet infrastructure, each has its own local Wi Fi connection. So that's what we've been running. And we are also starting to do some in person programs in some of the liberated areas. So we have local partners on the ground helping us with a lot of states, we have teachers, who are either like training teacher trainers, you know, training, teaching assistants from those regions, who would facilitate the classroom discussions where, where else, the lead instructor from our side, will still be teaching like, through a screen. So that practice has been common, and we were trying to see if we could, if we could scale it up. So yeah, this will be the summary of the activities and the courses that we've been offering.

Host 1:20:58

Thanks for that. And to get a sense of numbers, what approximately how many students have passed through your programs? And how many teachers and volunteers and other staff do you have on the other side of that? Right,

Thura 1:21:12

certainly. So we started in May 2021. So we've been around for like two and a half years. So over the past, probably over that timeframe, we've had over 21,000 that have enrolled, and across different programs, I've got the short courses, a diploma, we don't call the radio lectures outreach. So yeah, it is now 21,000, we actually do a we actually ask about their some of the demographic data. So we can show that those slides at another time. So the majority of those students are female, as in which is quite typical with an Myanmar classroom environment. So around 64% of those students are female and around like, the the the the other 1/3 would be male students, we also have a significant portion, I think it's like three or 4% of the students identify identify themselves, as neither male or female, some has openly expressed their other gender identities, some as just say it's non binary, or is you know, they wouldn't classify themselves in the gender spectrum. So that's also one of the interesting developments that have emerged among the among the young people a better way to expressing themselves and their ideas and stuff. And we, we have over 200, CDN professors, faculty members, that are on a rotation basis less than like, when they become available, you know, they will teach a course or two, but then when they're on the run, or the internet is not good enough, or they have other presenter issues, they will like take a break for like, for like six months, and then after they become available again, you know, they will come back to at any time, we have around 200 220 faculty members at SU n. And we are running this whole operations with around 6065 staff members, some are volunteers, some are part time. But but the senior leadership is committed to this full time. We've had to you know, drop all our other work and and our other jobs, and have been committed to this STM ever since.

Host 1:23:41

And for those people that are listening around the world, if someone would be interested in volunteering, maybe someone has some teaching background or some knowledge in the content area, is that something that's open?

Thura 1:23:53

Oh, certainly, we haven't really made a campaign specifically targeting that. But that is an open channel that we will welcome you know, all friends of Myanmar to to to collaborate with us. So the one way to do that would be through the website. So there's a section called contact us if you would like to, you know, teach with us or if you have some suggestions for ideas if you're or if you're interested in donating to us. So there's there's Contact Us section and there have been a few volunteer, you know, faculty members who are willing to help either pro bono or through a certain grant connection that they might have. So yeah, we have actually onboard with some of those interested volunteers.

Host 1:24:43

So this is such an unconventional thing that you've launched off the ground and it's been launched at, in in a period of real conflict and unrest in which there's just basic instability everywhere, as I said, to lead off this interview There's no roadmap or precedent that I know of, for really what you're doing. And so what kinds of safety issues do you have to take into consideration? As you're you're putting out these classes? And what kind of safety problems have you run into thus far?

Thura 1:25:16

Right? Oh, that is a, that's a big one. I will say that the security issue is I've have always been, you know, been been a top priority, because to this day, you know, I haven't really publicly disclosed or nobody in the leadership team, or any faculty member has publicly expressed their affiliation with Su and we use nicknames, both on and off screen, our say. So our main risk assessment would be the military cracking down on us, for whatever reasons that they might have, maybe they they're unhappy that we are pulling students from their, you know, public universities and colleges, or they are happy that we're growing too large. And getting influential among the youth communities are simply they just don't like anyone with a name, with a with a spring in their names. So we've we've always identified we we continuously try to identify potential risk exposure points. So there have been several, so the, to begin with our students and teachers and student affairs officers, they, they are all required to use nicknames and code names, as they join these zoom classes, these diploma programs or the short courses through online through or through online channels. So when they join, zoom, you know, there's a protocol that they need to join for students is they have a coach, it's like su 1234. So they have to join with their code, they are not permitted to turn on the video, both the teachers and their students. So at times, it's really challenging because they're just essentially looking at a blank screen without any human touch. But that's, that's what the security protocol dictates to maintain a safe operation. We continue to, you know, receive accept donations and tuition free payments from the students. So our payment accounts we're increasingly using and ug pay and spring development bank and you know, other, like, maybe they have Thai bank account, so we're increasingly using those other than the payments and wallets, under the control of the central bank. So the most total of the most common wallet would be the KB set pay. But there have been so many instances of you know, them freezing kibitzer pay accounts, and suspicion of fundraising or or being related to the N ug, so we're trying to reduce those, that dependency and keep it snappy. And other protocols also include, like, we have both physical and digital safety, security protocols handbook. And there's also a range of like response plans or different codes for different urgency of the situation. So you know, if it's a co blog is its largest amount of exposure and breach of our security protocols, right, there are other lower categories too, I would say the the instances that are safety has come close to becoming compromised would be, you know, when we had to announce certain projects and certain activities, for example, and one we had an MOU with a Thai university, you know, we had to announce it, partly because we wanted the admissions to be open and fair to everyone. Otherwise, I mean, we could have just, you know, stick to our own little circles, or our own alumni network, to recruit students for that. But we felt we needed to announce, you know, to publicize this, and, and then in some other instances, we have to publicize our activities in the country without mentioning specific locations. So in those instances, you know, the hunter could have really, if they wanted to, they could have really pinpoint where we are and who we are. And really identify, you know, our our identities and and either pressure our parents or maybe delete our passwords and stuff like that. So the, those are the closest, we're trying more and more to stay out of everything that's relevant to the hunter. So those TCP wallets we're seeing if we could use, you know, safer platform for learning and other communications. Oh, it's very lucky. that Facebook has spent the junta SS completely. So we don't have to worry about that. But yeah, we will continue to. So this has been higher priority and we don't compromise. Some students and teachers have requested because the alert their learning languages, they need to see the mouth patterns, and they need to see the faces. But we really can't allow, you know, students and teachers turning on the video because there's, there's no way we could know, you know, students, anyone could apply. We do put on some screening and you know, interviews and stuff. But if they were posing as if someone from the military was posing as a student, there's no way we could have known. So our approach is to minimize contact among themselves, and to not expose any real world identities to each other.

Host 1:30:49

And I suppose that in the work that you're doing with education, this touches upon whether you want to or not, it does touch upon this issue of legitimacy, because there is in the public sector, which this basically is it's not a it's, it's something that's there available for all the the issue of what education is provided, and who is providing it. And what does it mean, if you get it if you, if you pass through the requirements, we give you we that we set for you, what do we give you in return in terms of paper credentials, all of this kind of plays into legitimacy. And this is and again, whether you want it to or not, this is playing into the military's thirst and desire to want to have legitimacy in all regards for whatever that means. And you have a you have a minister of education that is that has a role that is functioning in the country. And in the I don't want to say government, I don't even want to say military government, because they're they're not and it's not just a question of them not being elected or not being or or being chosen for it. But it's also because the government governs and this military is not governing, they have never shown an interest in governing, they're a mafia outfit, basically, that is just trying to take and control what they want with providing as few goods and services as possible for the people's welfare. And so I don't want to, to, to give them any kind of recognition by even calling them a military government that their their regime. But this is a regime that does nominally have a minister of education and an education ministry within its its apparatus. And yet the new GE the national unity government also has an education ministry, and these and and then you we haven't gotten into your relationship with a new GE, which is probably relevant here. But I think that however this shakes out, this is all of these things are pointing to this question of legitimacy and of the the people recognizing what when you go to get your goods and services, whether you're anything from paying taxes to getting electricity to, you know, medicine and medical care, to education, all of these things are in some ways, looking at some recognition or legitimacy of state services that are being provided. And so there there has to be something there that the more people that are looking to you or the in Youjizz Ministry of Education or, or ethnic education providers that this in some degree is taking some legitimacy taking more legitimacy away from the military rule. And this can't be what they want. And we have read stories about how various times the military WELL, WELL, WELL demand and insists that different schools be filled and teachers come and that and they've they've taken extraordinary violence and, and pursuit of teachers that are on CDM that are that are on civil disobedience movement and refusing to show up to public schools and, and insisting that these public schools, both students and teachers that they come in mass to, to show a fully functioning apparatus of the society that's taking place. And so you, I would imagine that some of the work you do find yourself in the crossfire of this legitimate legitimacy question and in some ways, it might not even be what you seek out because you're just trying to provide an education and other ways it might very much be what you're trying to seek out. It might very much be like, Yeah, you know, you guys aren't legitimate, like look, look at all these people coming to us look at we're providing and you're playing right into that mindset of legitimacy. So if you could touch upon just this crossfire you find yourself in of and where this fits in with this legitimacy argument. and how to map out, you know, education in some ways is, I suppose could be kind of a political decision right now of where you go to seek your education can be, can have these overt political ramifications.

Thura 1:35:16

Right. Certainly, I think you're absolutely correct that, you know, education has been politicized in a sense that, you know, where where you choose to study is now is no longer a personal preference, but a better a better political decision of, you know, who you support and who you give your mandate towards, I think four, but but as now now as time with time during we will, we're gonna soon be in the third year of this military takeover. So there is still a very political component of, you know, why you do what you do, and you like, and, and continued calls for not supporting the any SSC apparatus, and, you know, throwing their support and other alternative platforms could be the new schools, it could be, you know, online schools like us, or it could be ethnic colleges and other ongoing activity, you know, that have no affiliation with the military. I would say that, right now, like, even for those, because in the early days of the CDM, movement, and and all those rallies, you know, those who were siding with the military was strongly shunt, and they were under a lot of peer pressure, and this kind of social punishment, you know, for their affiliations. And they were, they were publicly ridiculed, I mean, there were no harms involved. Most of the time, it was mostly, you know, social and peer pressure from the circles not to support the military apparatus. Now, you know, we're in year two and year three, of the military takeover, and for those students who have no choice, but to attend the schools, those coming from the poorest neighborhoods of Yangon and other rural areas, you know, partly because like for many of those parents sending their kids to school, it's not just about the school, it's about like, like, like a daycare, because the parents wouldn't be at home, and they need someone to watch their kids and they can't monitor their kids through online learning, because online learning also requires someone some adult to facilitate the children in using models, you know, tools and buttons. So they have, they've had no choice but to send back to the school to government schools, although they hate the military to the gods. So you know, we can sympathize with their situation and those like calls to boycott, the the military schools, it has gradually faded, but there is still a very strong resentment towards any military apparatus. And only those with no other options would opt for that. And even so, they would generally, you know, stay quiet, they would, they wouldn't make a big deal out of it. They would be most of the time embarrassed. And, you know, not talk publicly about it. But of course, there are some pro military supporters in the country coming from, you know, pro military families, and they, they will be another story. But generally, that decision is in the political, but it has also been increasingly economic and financial, you know, what other real life challenges and requirements that they need to address. On the legitimacy side, I think for both su M and N, ug, I think, our, you know, our projects, we have publicly supported the CTM. And we publicly announced that these courses offered by CDM professors. So we are free from that kind of, I mean, we are part of that political debate and political decision making, you know, because studying at SU M means there's two there supporting the CDM, which is a general consensus among the among the population. So we have that, that kind of trust and that kind of affinity among the students and the public. And but I think the real legitimacy especially in this, you know, alternative learning platforms is that students need to be convinced of our quality of teaching, and that's also a may bend that's also something that comes along with the CDM professors, because if you if you will look at closely of in, in a at any university, you know, when we decide between the CDM professors and non CDM professors, as well as CDM admin staff and Nancy them admin staff, you know, their differences go beyond just their political affiliations because most of them I, at least from what I've seen in my university and in my department, and with the teachers that we work with, through su M, you know, those who do not join the CDM also tend to be terrible teachers to begin with, like, I mean, it's all connected as opposed, you know, if if they don't have a spine strong enough to resist this, it just says, I don't think they they will do, they will take things very seriously and other parts of it. So you know, the, the the SEC universities are left with those, you know, unqualified, and they've even double down on the line right now, because most of the university faculties have been dismissed, they are now urgently trying to replace them with much younger, sometimes I don't know, if they even completed a Bachelor degree, they're just trying to just push up anyone who could take the job, and listen to listen to what the ministry has to say, in these faculty positions. So that's, that's on the SEC separate from yesterday on site. I mean, I've, I've joined some of these faculty lectures, and damn, they are just so wonderful and full of, you know, passion, and both in their subject material and their approach to teaching. So, you know, beyond that political affiliation, and the affinity that comes with it, I think what really keeps the students going and coming back towards su M and N, ug would be that kind of quality of teaching. But of course, there are so many limitations, you know, online learning has its own pros and cons. And there are still so many security protocols that we've put in place that hindered an ideal learning environment. But I think it's still ongoing.

And for Su M, our approach in this scenario, has been our, say, system strengthening approach, because we're essentially trying to build a parallel system of education where we're trying to replace the, you know, the military run system entirely. And it seems a bit daunting, and seems like such a big challenge. It is. But, you know, for anyone that has that was involved with the education reform of the previous five years, you know, in the NLD, regime, 2016 2020, I mean, reforming tiny bits and pieces here and there for a number of years, might have been egoless minus one as challenging as starting a whole new thing from scratch, you know, with this election system. So with this new system, I think the energy and the ethnic groups and us and they they have come up with a federal education chart, federal education policy, that outlines the vision and the values that they'll be upholding in the new Federal Democratic Union. And other you know, there have been more facilitation among the local education providers. So we have a lot of joint projects with ethnic education providers, sometimes it's their, you know, the whole departments like Kcd, under Keanu, the current education culture department, or sometimes there just to test a college on the ground that we've come across and who, who, who likes what STM is doing, and we find some common activity to do together, we also maintain a regular engagement with the energy. Now with just the Ministry of Education, though there are other because we're more centric towards, you know, youth engagement and just trying to maintain all youth participation and leadership in the spring revolution. So we've worked we've worked with the energy Ministry of Human Rights, the energies Ministry of women, youth and children affairs, electricity, labor, and the Prime Minister's Office. So we are not under energy, we have our own board and management teams and stuff. But we do maintain close communication with the energy and sometimes collaborate on their projects.

Host 1:44:12

Right, so as we talk about these different, the educational landscape, and we really have these kind of polarities, that we've been looking at the extremes of the the both being very political, combined with education, the the the public schools that are you could say are still military affiliated, or in the public sector, which the military now controls and things that are under the auspices of ug su M the ethnic organizations to flesh out that picture. We then have something I guess you could say kind of in the middle or kind of in a nebulous state with very important to be able to understand and look at and that's monastic schools and as we talk about the military, not not just in its current status, but really overall for decades, they've never really governed, they've never really shown an interest in any aspect of governing. And so it's been up to the people to try to figure out on their own how to fill those gaps that are and fill the gaps without being punished, really, that are so obvious and evident from the military rule. And so historically, that's happened through monastic schools, which there are different shapes and sizes of monastic schools, of course, implied in the name monastic school is that you're teaching something affiliated with Buddhism and Buddhist teachings. And yet, many monastic schools go outside of this and above and beyond. And they teach orphans and kids from impoverished backgrounds and war torn areas, and that are coming from difficult situations from all different ethnicities, and teach them a broad kind of national curriculum. That these are things that Monash monastic schools have stepped in to fill that gap over the years. And that nominally, they are under the Ministry of Education. And so tell us flush out a bit more from that. But just a brief background I gave of monastic schools, for those that aren't familiar with, with how these operate in Myanmar, and correct me if I've missed anything with them. So talk a bit about the role that monastic schools have played and their importance, historically. And then what what has been really the state and shape of the function of monastic schools today?

Thura 1:46:34

Right. I think you were absolutely correct about your characterization of dominated monastic schools and what has happened to them, you know, since since the coup, and was was what they are going through right now. I mean, if you will look at the history, though, I think the one of the more national schools well, not not in the current definition of it, but I think that one, the monastic institutions have been the backbone, the backbone of Myanmar's education system for the longest time, you know, prior to the British colonization and this sort of modern system of education, because like one, it will look at the previous 1000 years dating back to the bygone era and and the subsequent regimes and other in other ethnic areas to monastic system. It wasn't called a monastic school back then, I think it was monasteries, and other faith based organizations to like churches and mosques have been the education provider. Because other forms of like proper education were only available to the noble class and the ruling class, the general public had to deal with whatever's offered at the monastic the schools. And if they could read, they could write, and it was effective, to an extent because by around like 18 5050, or 1900, and the Myanmar had the highest highest rate of literacy among the among the Southeast Asian and among the Indian subcontinent, like the British India as well, I think it's still close to 90% of all the levels of literacy among both males and females at that time, which was unusually high. But that was the monasteries and the monastic institutions trying to bear that burden of you know, educating the, the educating those underserved communities. So with the in recent history, though, the monastic schools have been a primary source of education for the most vulnerable. I have taught as some monastic schools in Mandalay, and although you know, it's been my area is a Buddhist, sort of institution, but the type of students that they serve that that go way beyond those ethnicities and religions, there were so many students that that had to flee from their villages and ethnic areas that were shown Kachin, Karenni and other towns, etc, from those regions that are now studying in those Mandalay monastic schools, and they all come from with a whole set of fates, too. So they have been the backbone that's that that is serving those underserved communities. And I think in the definition of monastic schools that I think we could also include other features like in Karen and Karenni. You know, the education providers or leaders of those schools are often come with religious affiliations, they are run by nuns and priests. You know, we'd like to call them sisters sister something and father something. So those Christian missionaries and their affiliations have also been critical. In Maintaining, you know, continuing education for those displaced communities. And they have been continuously, like targeted by the SAC, especially after the coup, they have built and rebuilt their schools more than they can count. And so that that's something that's happening in the ethnic territories, but in the more like SAC controlled central areas, I think thermal analysis schools, they, because you know, they have physical, they have these buildings and campuses, so they can't just move out and just completely boycott the military. So I think they're also in a pretty tight situation. As in like, for us we ran, we could set a very solid, no engagement policy with the SAC, we do nothing with them. We don't recognize anything you know, that they're doing. But for the monasetry , schools, even if they wanted to, I think they would have to find other practical ways to maintain their operation to continue to educate their their students and those children, but trying to find some way not to get targeted and squashed by the military, because they have an account of military just bombing and just, you know, showing and using airstrikes to NUG schools, and other resistance led schools and liberated areas. So there's no telling what they will do today's monastic schools if they directly disobey the orders, so I think they're in a very tight spot at the moment. But I, but I would assume that we do have plans to start engaging with those monastic schools, I don't know how much help we could have been to each other. But I think it is serving a very critical population that are not targeted by any other education providers. And I really believe that they should they need to survive and they need to thrive.

Host 1:52:07

And moving on from that topic, looking at this wider educational landscape, we also see well, just in the society itself away from education, but of course, education is impacted because so many children are involved. There's just been massive displacement. There have been constant airstrikes, ground assaults, I think I saw a statistic just the other day, I think it's something like 76,000 homes have been burned to the ground. That obviously includes other institutions, schools have been schools themselves have been bombed, they've been taken over for military bases and monastic schools, as well have had the same fate and have all of that just horrible violence. And, and I think there's also some of the most viral pictures I've seen on social media have been schools that that have next to their school, they have like tunnels and ditches where you you see these images of these, just these these terrifying and horrible videos and images I've seen of teachers corralling these young kids, you know, 678 years old into ditches and tunnels and trying to sing songs with them. As you from the videos, you you see the fighter jets overhead, you hear their noise, you see the terror on the children's faces? I mean, this is trauma that how long does this stay with one you know, you can you can, there's a way to get over this eventually in life. But this is this is a hardship that you're you're at a very young age you're you have in front of you as an obstacle. And to say nothing of these really millions of people that are displaced, how many children who knows that are fleeing and jungles and IDP camps, which are themselves being bombed are in refugee camps in other countries where they don't have great status or support, even in those places. And so this is a, you know, 21,000 students, I think you said, You've taught this is an amazing number. It's a it's an amazing accolade that you think that you have taken part in an initiative that has given the gift of learning to so many people other than otherwise might not have it. But we also have to look at the scale of this and the relative lack of education that is hitting so many people all up and down the country because of this terror of the military. And so to what degree are, have you been following or aware of just the problems that have been taking place as the challenges in these displaced populations in these camps and people fleeing and, of course, the Maslow's hierarchy that you look at survival and food and safety are always going to trump education. They're always going to be the things that that come first and the hierarchy of needs. And yet, but yet, we're talking about years, we're talking about yours were okay you you somehow find a way to survive and to meet those other needs. And then education has to come at some point somewhere even in these most difficult circumstances. So what can you tell us about how these displaced and terrorized populations have been looking at and trying to administer to their educational needs?

Thura 1:55:21

Right, right. Yeah, that's a very good question. I think you're also right about, you know, like, how this situation has been like, they there are different priorities among these displaced populations. I will say that, like, the most important thing to begin with, and in addressing these challenges, and these critical needs would be to start with the right problem statement, I would say, I think it's more common to this, this, this is mistaken. More commonly among, you know, especially international actors, and it could be international universities or development partners, embassies, many international stakeholders that we've talked to, I mean, looking at this, you know, when when we see children and teachers are trying to hide out in, in those bomb shelters, and those teachers and the school has been burned to the ground, you know, the, the need for education is a man saw the need for other humanitarian measures. But if we start from the point, say, you know, the young people of Myanmar needs education. I mean, that's a, that's a rather short sighted approach, and it will lead to our say, inaccurate, or even sometimes wrong remedies if you go down that line. Because, I mean, generally speaking, the education is not really the top priority that the Myanmar people need or want, because if they wanted it, they said, there's actually a very simple solution, you know, just given to the military demands. I mean, I know it sounds horrible, but they won't have to hide in the ditches or, you know, have their schools burn, of course, the, the quality of learning that they've had will be terrible. But But if if the problem assessment was that Myanmar young people needs education, you know, if it stops right there, then it will lead to other inaccurate solutions down the line. But that's now what an Myanmar people wants or needs. Because what we knew what we're really trying to do is take down this topple this military regime and these alternative education, healthcare them flee being displaced, they know how to well why this has going on, and they are willing to go through this, we are willing to go through this and trying to take down the regime. So the problem statement should begin with, you know, how can we help them Myanmar people in their fight, and taking down the regime? And then other questions have we had? Do we do it? Do we do it through the humanitarian assistance support? Or do we do it through education? Do we do it through other technical support that that they will be needing? I'm only highlighting this because if we go from this, I mean, I would, we are doing universities and you know, education is our top priority. But it doesn't mean that it is the only thing that Myanmar people needs. Because we've seen some, like international partners, development organizations, just putting a blind side to the rest of the conflict, and just focusing solely on education and trying to provide education at all cost. And then further down the line, they will meet other problems like okay, how do we deal with the SEC how do we deal with other ethnic colleges and you know, other pro life pro revolutionary groups. So, it's, it's, I think it's important to formulate this clearly from the beginning. So for Su M, I will say, our primary goal has always been, you know, to help the young people fight their fight. So along the way, we we are teaching them along the way we're providing them resources and connections and exposures to each other to the rest of the world and formulating their responses and formulating their campaigns, and helping you know, the CDM professors, because they are still fighting as long as they remain CDM they are fighting this military regime. So that has been the core foundation that we've done. And that will be the same approach that we would be addressing those more critical needs. So when those you know, groups in in the in the most intense battle states in Korean nice again now northern Shan we do work through those local administrators and ethnic administrators that are you know, the two The facto governing bodies of those regions, and we would approach we would adopt both top down and bottom up approaches, and that we will try to see what are the needs that that governing authority needs on that situation. Sometimes it's courses, sometimes there's infrastructure, you know, to rebuild all the schools that have been burned. Sometimes there's other humanitarian assistance like medicine and water and food and stuff. So we would try to align their priorities with our tele variables, whenever we try to do and do a program intervention there. So that would be the top down approach that we do. And the bottom up approach will be that we still talk to those local educators on the ground, sometimes they ethnic out there of ethnic backgrounds, sometimes they are, they come from the Myanmar, like the central region, and they had to flee that flee their homes, and now they are inside those frontier areas. So you know, they have very inspiring ideas of they're efficient for educating these young people. And they have very creative ways of reaching out to these students, because they have very limited resources. So creativity is the only way, you know that, that they could get around. So that definition, I would say, for the most critical needs for the world church and urgently needed areas and the most intense battle states, I would say, firstly, to have the right problem assessment that this is all happening because of the military. And this is all happening because the people are trying to fight this fight, and we need to stand behind them and support them in their quest. And our focus area will be education. So our education priorities and deliverables need to be aligned with their other governance and public administration objectives, as well as the political objectives that those authorities are trying to try to try and achieve. So it's a part of the package. And once we get through that, I think it's also important that that would also be the an important way to build trust with these ethnic communities with these displays communities, because they have gone through so many traumatic experiences and other psychological issues over the notice after the coup, but over the past decades, so it's a it's a it's a delicate area, but it's urgently needed. And I hope, you know, other neighboring countries, actually Thailand, India, Bangladesh, would continue would start to consider supporting these displays use, and maybe no longer stay neutral in this minimize conflict.

Host 2:02:54

Thanks. That's, that's, that's really a great and comprehensive answer and have just one more question for you and appreciate all the time you've taken to share your journey and mission and what you're doing here. And the question segues with part of what your answer are covered and looking at some of the the ethnic forms of education and the ethnic Bomar relations. And actually I should mention our nonprofit through the generous donations of many listeners to this podcast as well as those concerned about Myanmar, we've managed to build eight schools for chin refugees in Mizoram think supporting about eight 900 students. So that's a definite thank you for all of those that have contributed to that educational endeavor, and then a part of that in our small way of providing some support towards that direction. But we we've talked a bit, you've talked a bit in some of your answers and going into the termination policies and the also you referenced how you teach ethnic languages as part of your curriculum, and that there are supposedly people, students that are learning an ethnic language that's not their own, which is really wonderful. I think in all of my time in Myanmar, I only had there was only one Bomar friend that I had that actually took time to learn an ethnic language. It was a Braemar friend who lived in kitchen state and spent a year studying kitchen and could conversationally speak kitchen and I didn't just personally anecdotally didn't know didn't, weren't aware of other Braemar friends or acquaintances that were trying to learn another tongue and another way of speaking and and I think that's really wonderful. I think there's something about learning the language is in a way a type of submission. And if there's a concern about superiority attitudes, I think that learning another language is a small way that one can chip away a little bit at that to an opening yourself to another community and way of expression and everything else. But, you know, the regime has infamously used education to propagandize their version of Berman ized. History and, and telling their version of highlighting their own role in that history and minimizing the role and accomplishments of many ethnic people. And so in this new type of curriculum and education that you're providing, to what degree and you mentioned one of it already with providing the curriculum in ethnic languages, which is just awesome, I would love to learn those ethnic languages as well. But to what extent are you also looking at and what practices are you doing to try to open it up and have greater Bomar ethnic collaboration and friendship and association and really kind of hit hard at these terrible urbanization policies that have impacted the whole country, but especially the public education sector before?

Thura 2:06:05

Right, right, certainly. So and so we had the language was racially among the first classes that we offer right after we start though, right after we launched, su M, which started in around May, and the language whether we're up and running around like June or July, then there were a mess interest from from the students, I think, around like 800 students registered for for for those courses, and they, a large number of them actually attended these courses to completion. So our objectives in offering these ethnic courses and ethnic studies was as as you highlighted, we needed to build a stronger or and a stronger and different rapport between the deaths, the conversations with between the Bamar and the ethnic groups, I think, even unknowingly, you know, there have been so many hours of propaganda over the past years, maybe regarding the the ethnic names, you know, just very simple stuff that really bothers different groups of people. So we're trying to get away from that. And, of course, it's the those are those low, low hanging fruits, but I think, as we move on, I think the, as we build a Federal Democratic Union, and this also tied with other political and lower say, defense and strategic considerations, that you know, if we will look at what has happened in northern Shan, of course, is to Ta'ang and, and Kokang that are leading, but we will also see many other ethnicities, you know, joining the fight join is a is a, essentially a joint command that they have executed, and that there seem to be a strong trust, and dialogue and discussion among the different ethnicities on the front lines and stuff. So, there is something that we imagined because there were calls for federal army, you know, that is under the supervision of a civilian elected head of state. And so we believe that these ethnic language courses could be the foundation of building stronger trust and appreciation of different cultures. In this in this new chapter, another issue that we're trying to do with also to mainstream ethnic studies, and in general, Myanmar academic circles, because, So, apart from the other language courses, we've also launched a diploma program in the kitchen social studies. So, that was in collaboration with arts and literature, literature and art Association based in the Kachin state, some of them are in my Diane and lies at the headquarters of the Kachin armed organization, and they have been extremely resourceful and helpful in designing the curriculum together with us and I think that the first cohort of students will graduate by by by by March. So, so to to really scale up the ethnic languages and to speed up this you know, cultural diversity and exchanges and appreciation. We will also need to scale up the depth of the how much in depth that we are going with this ethnic studies, because unlike the Myanmar literature and and all these available put A lot of work for many of the ethnic languages, even even the major ethnic groups like Chin and Kachin and Shan, and, you know, their their literature, resources and their textbook and all these pedagogical assets are still very limited, and it needs to be re cultivated. And it and it needs to be cherished by the, by the mainstream academics. So that's also something that we've been trying to do. And I hope that, you know, with more support from international partners, as well as we are also counting on the local financial contributions to maybe you know, those business businesses and other economic sources could be supporting this locally led efforts to say revitalize the language, and to re cultivate studies on ethnic cultures, art, history, and languages. Maybe just one last part if I could touch upon now, because I understand, you know, this is going to be listened by so, so many important stakeholders. So regarding, you know, like, well, so now that we've outlined, you know, what's happening, and what are the challenges I'm going to do, what the aspirations are, you know, for those who want to contribute and be involved within Myanmar cause in the with regards to the education sector? You know, I will say, the most important aspect, I would suggest would be localization. You know, it's, it's a pretty NGO word that everyone keep tossing around, but no one really follows up or take seriously, but I think it has a lot of merit and what's happening right here. I mean, there have been efforts by international partners who mean well, trying to help the Myanmar faculty members, or the D students trying to give them scholarships. But I think, the most effective way that, you know, these, these could be any subclass would be to prioritize localization. So it wouldn't be you know, trying, instead of just bringing into Myanmar, an already existing program from the US or from Australia, or from Thailand, we should be looking at what the local educators have been offering, especially since the coup and trying to match you know, whatever resources that the international partners bring in, instead of the other way around, where else, you know, they want to adopt, they want the local actors to adopt, though international programs, which they often cannot. So after a few years of pilot project, it just falls apart and they wouldn't download the local address, we're just left with nothing. So I'm just just my suggestion for those listening and considering to become involved and to be contributing to the Myanmar calls through the education sector, I would highly suggest localization, the suggest to prioritize localization, get a better understanding of what the local educators have been providing what the local students are demanding, like what they want to teach what they want to learn and what they where they want to go with it. And that will lead to very successful international joint projects with Myanmar stakeholders. So that's, yeah, that's one thing that I forgot to mention throughout throughout the discussion.

Host 2:13:34

Absolutely, and I totally second that I in my time in Myanmar, when it was not in conflict, or at least the urban centers were not in conflict as as, as we're starting to see today. I don't know how many times I would see these foreign experts, you know, quote unquote, experts, Ji Jo's, they were nicknamed jet and jet out where they would come with their usual presentation handsomely paid, that they had given everywhere else and that it was, you know, hey, follow this model. And, and, and, and then it was, you know, from both sides, it was kind of tragic, because then from the other side, you see this complete lack of opportunity and education and support and everything else. And so, you know, they're the student classes, of course, just so grateful and feel so privileged to be able to have access to some speaker or some topic or structure of something they can't normally get. But, but yeah, you just see it fall flat. And, and certainly, you know, there's, I think it's, I think there are methods, when you look at methodology, or pedagogy, or or these other ways of teaching that there are, there are sound, good practices that you can do, but those have to be integrated with local solutions. And when I came in to be a teacher trainer, I believe evolved very strongly and passionately in the principles behind participatory education, adult learning theory and experiential learning, reflective cycle and these other things that I had been trained on, I believe that these things were inherent in all of us in human nature and in the way the mind worked, but that the way they worked in one place was not how they worked in another. And that you you had to find some marriage and some intersection between these sound practices that, that worked in the educational environment and knowing who your students were, what environment they were coming from, how they understood the world and you know, as especially as a foreigner just have massive respect for and curiosity and humility of how they're seeing the world in ways that we you know, that as a foreigner, you would you would never, you can never understand you can't read a book or or ask a question that really takes a lot of time and silence and observation, reflection, conversation adaptation, because of course, you're not going to do everything right the first time, a lot of trial and error of, of putting something out there seeing where it goes, seeing where you get hung up on and making those changes to it shifted from running programs, that was training teachers, to training trainers, and to, to move into training of trainers and look at how can how can we take these embodied skills that we have. And when we started this out, I was told it was impossible, I was told that the country was so closed, the education system was so broken, that to bring in this style of education and training that we were doing, it just simply wouldn't work. Tragically, it wouldn't work. I was told that by my predecessor, and when I came in, I was like, Screw that, like, if this doesn't work, I want to see it with my own experience, I want to I want to try everything, I can leave nothing on the table. And at the end of the day, see that I had given every ounce of effort I had, and it still didn't work and I didn't know how to make it work. If I came to that conclusion, then then okay, you know, I'll look at other options, look at lowering the bar, or or, you know, not have these the same aspirations and ambitions, but I want that to be from my own hard work, and more importantly, from their hard work and what they're showing me and, you know, I found that, that that was, you know, that that was simply not true, that was talking about superiority, that was a, you know, a Western superiority or a white superiority or, or superiority of advanced, developed nations versus, you know, those that were that had more difficulty, and, you know, my experience and running these kinds of participatory trainings and workshops, like it was just as hard in the West, you know, like, they, it was hard in different ways, the way it was hard was very different. But true participatory learning, it shakes you to your core, it's deconditioning, it's revolutionary, no matter where you do it. Because there is something inherent in us that likes the hierarchy, both as teacher and student that fits into, you know, I just have to speak or I just have to listen, and this is easy. And to reverse that and go out of that model, you'll truly go out of that model, not just in Word, but indeed, that, that shakes things up. And it's unsettling. It's unsettling for me, and but it's the type of education that I, you know, I just I love so much because it's changed me, it's transformed me, everyone that I've worked with in Burma and outside of Burma through this educational model, it's transformed, that they've been, it's like, we come together still, after all these years, my former participants, Burmese participants, and it's like, we were speaking the same language, we speak the same shorthand, and, you know, this idea that communication is, is really a miracle. Like when communication happens, it is so hard to really truly communicate and, and to, to, to be able to, to share something together and have that understood that there's so many conditions that have to come together for that to happen. And so much of it is negotiation of meaning and and of, of of relation and where we're coming from, how are perspectives are different and interest in that. And so really, the whole methodology and purpose of this podcast platform from the beginning has been to bring together these different puzzle pieces of guests that come on from these diverse backgrounds to open up to who they are, who their story is, for my own benefit, of course, but for the benefit of the listeners as well. And to say like your perspective is not wrong. It's just as valued as this other one. But how can you how can you take in this other perspective that might be diametrically opposed to yours and hold them together hold that discomfort and tension and indifference together and not be threatened by it but actually be invigorated and excited about it and to be able to say, Wow, we disagree we we have different opinions. We like different things. We And, you know, we had a different view of, of whatever this thing was, this is this is not a chance to feel threatened or superior or inferior or argue it out, this is a golden opportunity to be able to, to hold what I feel and think and to check in with what you feel and think and to bring these together, and then see what happens, maybe maybe one of us changes, maybe both of us change, maybe we stay where we are. But we, we benefit by being mature enough to hold our view and also encompass this other view. And, you know, that's what happens in the classroom. That's what happens in the train room. And hopefully, that's what happens sometimes on these podcasts as well, even though they're only conversations between me and another. It can certainly happen in real time between those two individuals. But hopefully, as it's being broadcast out, it happens in a wider way that as people are a passive listener, a kind of third person ghost in the conversation that you know that they feel themselves sitting beside us, even though they're listening many months after we have this conversation, that they're able to sit there and kind of be like, well, I yeah, I kind of I agree with that. And I have a different view of that. And my experience is kind of like this, but to be able to, to be interested enough and mature enough to think, okay, that is a view, that is an experience, that is a perspective. And all of these perspectives come together, as I think as puzzle pieces, when we can do that. It's something that everyone benefits, it's not about right or wrong, it's about understanding that all of these fit together in some confusing way that we're all kind of CO exploring and trying to find out. But that is learning that is community that is dialogue, that is communication. And, you know, just as we want to bring that into the training space in the classroom, and society, so also we want to bring it into this, this platform and the community that we hope we build of, of all these different voices that can coexist. So, so So thank you for allowing me to go off just now I usually don't do.

Thura 2:22:04

Thanks for that. Yeah, really appreciate them. And I mean, I was agree, I think, you know, we first First of all, I mean, really appreciate you taking that position, you know, when during your time in Myanmar army, I can understand it must have been very easy, you know, to try and that approach, among other actors. That was really good. And I also agree that it really shows and how you're running insight Myanmar, I've come across some other podcasts and the way you approach these topics, and even the way you, you know, reach out to these speakers, I think it's, it is really reflective of that attitude. And yeah, I really hope we could continue that conversation at another time to Yeah,

Host 2:22:46

absolutely. Yeah, thank you this, this has been wonderful. It's great to get back to my my own training roots. It's a subject close to my heart. And it's one that I don't think ever leaves me You know, I I've often said the two most transformative experiences of my life, have been learning and enacting the training methodology that that's my background, which partly was in Burma, and partly was outside and meditation, which, which was a Burmese lineage of meditation. And both of these things changed me more than, you know, anything I've ever experienced in life. And, and so, you know, so it's great to get back to back to those roots.

Thura 2:23:22

Right, right. Certainly. Yeah.

Host 2:23:26

Great. So I thank you again, for taking this time and to be able to describe this mission. It's great to be able to share that with our with our listeners, and to bring your voice and your story on here.

Thura 2:23:36

Thank you, thank you very much.

Host 2:23:52

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. As regular listeners are aware, we often remind our audience about our nonprofit mission better Burma at the end of the show. Truth be told, fundraising is hard work. And I can personally attest the fact that it's really no fun to keep asking for contributions. Yet the situation on the ground now in Myanmar is so distressing, that we continue to do so on behalf of the Burmese people. What is most helpful at this time are recurring donations, which help alleviate both the stress and time involved in fundraising. If you were able to pledge a certain amount per month, our team can plan around having at least a consistent minimum amount to work within each month. If you would like to join in our mission to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup, we welcome your contribution in any form, currency or transfer method. Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian and media missions, aiding those local communities who need it most. Donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement CDM families of deceased victims, internally displaced person, IDP camps, food for impoverished community These military defection campaigns, undercover journalists, refugee camps, monasteries and nunneries education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies COVID relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs. You can give a general donation or you mark your contribution to a specific activity or project you would like to support, perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by a nonprofit mission that are Burma. And the donation you give on our insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fund. Alternatively, you can also visit the better Burma website betterburma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause in both websites except credit card. You can also give via PayPal by going to paypal.me/better Burma. Additionally, we can take donations through Patreon Venmo, GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search better Burma on each platform and you'll find our account. You can also visit either website for specific links to these respective accounts or email us at info@betterburma.org. That's better Burma. One word, spelled b e t t e r b u r m a.org. If you'd like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artists and communities across Myanmar. Available at alokacrafts.com Any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits wider mission. That's a local crafts spilled A L O K A C R A F T S one word alokacrafts.com Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.