Living Silence in Burma (37 page)

In the government’s school system, learning consists of rote
memorization, and exams call for the exact repetition of the teachers’ or textbooks’ words, with no room for critical thinking. This teaching method is regarded as normal and parallels a common learning style for young students in the monasteries, where monks order small boys to memorize Buddhist texts.
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Rote memorization has been the usual teaching method throughout Asia, although this is beginning to change. In Burma the effect can be damaging, because it reinforces submission to all authority, a message students are getting in virtually every dimension of their lives.

Kyaw Moe, who now lives abroad, said: ‘It is very hard for Westerners to understand, but in Burma, there is no retort to elders or teachers. They must obey everything in front of the teacher or their parents.’ Even if the teacher makes a mistake, the student has no right to correct the teacher. While students may grumble behind their elders’ backs, they do not learn how to make logical arguments or how to understand the complicated nature of many issues for which there is no single right answer.

Kyaw Moe thought that, in theory, the Educational Ministry could shift to a more open teaching style, because some Burmese educators have been abroad to study other educational techniques. But he said it was not in the regime’s interest. If students and teachers are permitted to discuss issues freely, the students will be far less likely to accept the regime’s propaganda.

Ethnic nationality education systems

For many citizens whose native language is not Burmese, maintaining their own languages and histories is of great importance because this constitutes a major part of their identity. Successive regimes have, however, tried to gradually assimilate non-Burman ethnic groups in part through compelling students to study in Burmese and to learn a Burman nationalist version of the country’s history. Some ethnic minorities learn to read and write their languages in their churches or monasteries, but many only learn to speak their languages.

Although ethnic minority languages are theoretically allowed to be taught at the early primary-school level, implementation of the policy has been fraught with obstacles. According to a Karen headmaster who promoted the Karen curriculum, the Karen textbooks were submitted for approval in 1967, but they were not actually printed until the 1980s. Whenever he asked about the delays, he was told there was not enough paper. After the textbooks were finally printed, no new teachers were provided to teach Karen. If the teachers on staff could not read and write Karen already, they were unable to instruct their students. Such
policies are perhaps not surprising, because it is in the regime’s interest that fluency in other languages be gradually eliminated and minority populations become assimilated into the Burman majority population. In this way, there will be less basis for minority claims against the state’s unifying projects.

In areas controlled by the armed ethnic organizations, they have developed their own curriculums in their native languages. While they usually simply translate the maths and science textbooks into their own languages, they take great pains to use their own history books. Maintaining the right to run their own schools was one of the most important issues for the New Mon State Party when it made a ceasefire agreement with the regime in 1995. The regime conceded on this, but tried to induce the NMSP to give up this policy by saying it would only pay the salaries of teachers using the state curriculum. The NMSP has struggled to maintain its educational system as it has limited funds. It has, however, been able to obtain some foreign funding, while villagers also generally support local teachers, who are paid almost nothing. In 2006, the NMSP’s education department was running 186 schools of its own and contracted Mon teachers to teach Mon language as an extra subject in 189 state-run schools.
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Mon teachers periodically face harassment from various local-level army officers and authorities, but so far the system as a whole has survived.

Mon monks and other interested individuals also organize Mon literacy courses at monasteries during the summer holidays. Tens of thousands of Mon students attending government schools have participated in these courses.

Similarly, the Karen National Union’s Education Department uses its own curriculum, which is taught in the most widely used Karen dialect, Sgaw Karen. This curriculum is also used in Karen refugee camps in Thailand, with Burmese given little emphasis as it is treated as the enemy’s language. English is introduced in primary school and used as the medium of instruction at the high-school level.

In government-controlled areas, ethnic minority teachers have had to teach a curriculum that almost completely excludes their histories and cultures. Divergent perspectives on pre-colonial Burman kings’ history of conquest are not incorporated, giving the impression that ethnic tensions in Burma resulted only from British colonial policies.

In areas controlled by the ethnic resistance armies, their former warriors, kings and intellectuals are valorized, and the Burman conquerors are described as villains. Foreign and Burmese education-focused NGOs
have worked with a number of the ethnic resistance organizations’ education departments to introduce student-centred learning techniques and critical thinking skills. Nevertheless, history tends to be taught in the same way as in the regime’s education system. Only one side of the story is presented.

Buying good grades

Corruption has been another factor which has lessened the value of the in-school educational experience. Teachers’ salaries are so low that they must look for supplemental sources of income to make ends meet. Some run small businesses, such as selling snacks to students, but many survive by offering private tuition. They do not teach the full lessons during regular school hours so students must attend the extra classes after school. Although this is illegal, the authorities generally turn a blind eye, because they understand that the teachers cannot survive otherwise. In other cases, school authorities sell goods at inflated prices to students during school hours, which students often feel obliged to buy.

In 1995, a twelve-year-old student described such a situation in a letter to his aunt, who lived outside the country. His headmaster, Ba Pe, was trying to make some quick money before retiring. Nwe Nwe, his sister, could not resist the pressure, although the letter-writer, Moe Aung, did.

    Dear Auntie,

        How are you? I am praying that you are well. This evening I feel like writing, so I’m writing you …

        U Ba Pe is not good. He is forcing students to buy calendars worth about 20 kyat for 45 kyat. Nwe Nwe is scared of her teacher so she bought one. But I didn’t buy it because it is not worth it. My class teacher loves me, so he didn’t say anything about my not buying one.

        They are also selling shoulder bags at inflated prices. They take a profit of about 75 kyat per bag. There are 5,000 total. The teachers had to go sell the bags in Rangoon. It’s pitiful, isn’t it. The truth is that the teachers have a duty to make the students excel in their education and to improve their morality. They are being ordered to do things which have nothing to do with teaching activities.

        I can’t say that U Ba Pe is a bad person. He is about to retire, so it’s his last chance to take advantage of his position. He’ll easily get at least 300,000 kyat.

        I’m going to go to sleep. Good-bye.

        Moe Aung

Another way for high-school teachers to make money is on the grading of the matriculation exam, the defining moment in a student’s life. Entrance to college is decided solely by a student’s score in the exam. In many instances, matriculation exams are marked up for students whose parents have given large cash donations to the teachers responsible for doing the marking. One former tutor who checked exams told of the examiners putting blue ink fillers into red pens so that they could change the answers on certain students’ exam papers. Then they would use another red pen to mark the score.

Big money can also be made by selling the exam questions in advance. The result is not only the degradation of the education system, but also the introduction of greater inequalities in opportunities for further education. Poorer students are much less likely to make it into the universities, because they can afford neither all the private tuition classes nor the bribes for higher scores.

Since 1991, the same has been true at university level. Many lecturers do their real teaching in private tuition classes and sell their exam questions for large sums of money. Even medical students must attend tuition classes. As one university professor in the mid-1990s explained, the fee for the car that took her daughters to and from school was almost as high as her monthly salary, so she had to teach tuition classes to survive.

Many university students come from elite families and can afford tutoring charges and bribes to get their exam scores raised, but others cannot. Taking a cynical view, student activist Moe Thee Zun explained how he and his friends tried to equalize the differences in the mid-1980s. They encouraged poor students to copy during the examinations.

In the 1990s, university lecturers were reportedly being encouraged to put easy questions on the exams and even sometimes overlook copying in order to appease students whose frustrations with the educational system and economic problems could otherwise be channelled into political protests.
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Needless to say, the idea of actually learning something in the classroom has been largely lost in all of this.

University life

Under successive military regimes, the primary focus in the development of the university system has been the containment of student activism rather than the improvement of the quality of education. The demonstrations that sparked the nationwide protests in 1988 originated on university campuses in Rangoon, where students from different
universities could easily link up and mobilize the local population. Since 1988, the military regime has tried to prevent this from happening again by moving students from campuses in central Rangoon to sparsely populated areas outside the city and by expanding the number of regional colleges.

The expansion of regional colleges is theoretically positive in that it should mean wider access to higher education and lower costs, because more students could live at home while attending classes. The problem is that the regional colleges tend to be underfunded and under-equipped, so the quality of education tends not to be very good.

The regime also encourages students to enrol in distance education programmes, in which they come to the campus only once or twice a week or just for ten days before exams. This is convenient for students who need to work to support themselves, and are interested only in getting a degree. The quality of education is not as high as on the regular courses, but from the regime’s perspective, there is a benefit. Distance education students do not have much of an opportunity to develop friendships and associations that could lead them into political activity.

Even those students who study full time on campuses generally get little out of the formal teaching. University curriculums must be approved by military censors, limiting the fields of enquiry, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, many of the best teachers have gone abroad, where they can earn a decent income and teach more freely. In 2003, there were more than five hundred Burmese professors and lecturers working at universities in Thailand and hundreds more teaching in other countries.
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Since 1964, students have been assigned their courses according to the scores on their matriculation exams, regardless of whether or not they have any interest in the subject.
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They can choose a subject that is ranked lower, but not one that is ranked higher. The regime decides how many students should enter each subject, but despite the fact that there are almost no jobs in certain fields, students continue to be assigned to subjects like physics and zoology. As a result, many families feel that a university education is useless unless their children are accepted on to courses that guarantee jobs, such as medicine and engineering.

Even at university level, students are not taught to develop analytical skills. A university graduate explained: ‘It is just rote memorization. You either get the information from the textbook or go to class and get it from the teacher, but there is no need to go to class.’ In his four years at Rangoon University, he never once went into the library. Even those
who do visit the library may not be allowed to take out books unrelated to their subject.

Students who try to be conscientious about their studies often find it pointless. Aung Zin, a medical student, talked about his experience in preventive and social medicine in the mid-1980s. The class had to carry out health education programmes in nearby communities, and Aung Zin was sent to Mingaladon village, near the airport. He was expected to take care of three or four households, giving health education and treating minor illnesses. The idea was that after recommendations had been made, particularly about diet and sanitation, the families’ health would improve. The students were expected to make follow-up visits to ensure this happened, but Aung Zin says he was the only one in the class who actually visited the villagers again. Everyone else made up their reports.

Aung Zin wanted to help the families. He found that in one of his assigned houses, the ventilation was poor, the latrine was not very clean, and there were two TB patients. He suggested that the TB patients get treatment at a hospital, but they could not afford it. Since Aung Zin was given no medicine by his department, he could do little for them. Soon he realized that his visits were making the family feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. According to Burmese tradition, when a visitor comes, the host must offer some coffee, tea or snacks. Since the family had little money, they could not afford to give Aung Zin anything, and they also couldn’t show him any improvement. ‘Later,’ Aung Zin said, ‘I gave up and made up reports like everyone else.’