Students up in arms over govt's education bill

 

About 40 students at Mandalay’s Yatanarpon University yesterday staged a half-hour protest, denouncing the new national education bill. They were joined by students from Kyaukse University. The students said the bill restricts students’ rights, reinforces a centralised system, ignores ethnic literacy and relies on an outdated point system for grading.

They also questioned the process in which the bill is moving through Parliament, saying it lacked transparency.

“We don’t want the national education bill,” one placard read. “Abolish excessive rules and the dubious education system immediately,” said another at the first-ever protest at the university.

Nyan Htein Lin, who oversees the university’s Student Union organising committee, said there were discrepancies between the bill approved by the Lower House and the information about it printed in state-run newspapers. “The bill described in [state-run] newspapers does not match the one that was passed. This demonstrates a lack of transparency,” Nyan Htein Lin said.

He also lambasted provisions of the bill that he said restricted rights, strengthened the Union government’s control over higher education, ignored ethnic literacy and continued implementation of a point-based grading system.

“We’ve heard that the Upper House changed 71 provisions of the original bill without giving clear reasons why,” he added. 

Nyan Htein Lin said the drafting process was too narrow. Only government officials, ministers and professors participated in it, while the views of other experts and student representatives were ignored.

“That’s why we are protesting against the bill,” he said. 

The university’s Student Union called for wider engagement in the drafting process so that it includes the views of student representatives, teachers and experts outside government.

The protesters said the bill should shift towards a decentralised model for universities and schools, pave the way for the formation of school organisations and relax rules on curriculum. 

Two bills were submitted to Parliament in March: one drafted by the government’s Education Promotion Implementation Committee (EPIC) and another by the Lower House. 

The National Network for Education Reform (NNER) in March issued a statement opposing the government’s bill, saying the proposed legislation gives the government too much control over the school system. 

It particularly criticised the planned creation of a National Education Council comprising the vice president, ministers and other government officials.

“This is similar to the national education committee formed during the military regime. The National Education Council is another form of central control ... The academic freedom of students and teachers is still under their control, and there are remaining concerns over freedom for ethnic languages and curriculum,” the network said in the statement.

At an NNER-hosted forum in Yangon in March, Thein Lwin, an education expert at the network, said: “The military regime’s education policies still linger in our thoughts.” He said the network’s goal was for Myanmar citizens to have an “adequate and decentralised education” system. 

Joining the forum, Carol Haddaway from the US Embassy supported decentralisation. 

“Freedom in education and thinking is crucial for development of a nation. Myanmar still has weakness in this regard. Of course, every reform faces difficulties. But the Myanmar government should relax centralisation as soon as possible. As other countries have done this, I think, Myanmar could implement it successfully by taking the good examples of other nations,” said Haddaway.

Unesco spent six months to complete two education papers for Myanmar. Released in March, the papers aim to promote and contribute to ongoing dialogue on education legislation and decentralisation in Myanmar. They suggest a number of fundamental educational law and decentralisation components that Myanmar’s education stakeholders should consider through an inclusive reform process.