Myanmar's once-revered teachers lose their stature ( AFP ) November 18, 2002


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Myanmar's once-revered teachers lose their stature

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Nov 18 (AFP)

Teachers in Myanmar who were once accorded great respect are seeing their reputations plummet due to a combination of economic desperation, a purge in ranks and pressure by the ruling military.

A generation ago Myanmar's citizens equated their schoolteachers with the most senior religious scholars, with monks and parents, and in rare instances placed them on par with the Buddha himself. Trust in them was absolute.

But teachers from Yangon to Mandalay and beyond are finding their cherished role as keeper of the moral faith has eroded into that of the huckster, a peddler of knowledge whose price is beyond the means of most families, say exiles monitoring the country's creaking education system.

"The image of teachers is getting worse now, ever since the regime took power after a bloody military crackdown on the student-led pro-democracy movement of 1988," Myanmar teacher Cherry Lulu told AFP.A former senior faculty member at Yangon's Teacher Training College who fled to Thailand in the mid-90s, Lulu points to a raft of events and conditions which have led to a crumbling of respect.

The ruling military junta has blamed teachers for the nationwide crisis of 1988, in which student demonstrations were violently suppressed, leading to many deaths.In the aftermath the junta sacked hundreds and perhaps thousands of teachers who refused to inform on their students' activities, Lulu said.

Those who admitted under interrogation to supporting pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi or a multi-party system were transferred upcountry, or to areas near the front line of armed ethnic insurgency.

To avoid such fates several of the more than 200,000 faculty members in Myanmar are kowtowing to the often rigorous and exploitative demands of the junta, which are said to include excessive public displays of homage and large bribes for even the most basic teaching posts.

"I knew the life of Myanmar teachers very well," Lulu said. "Now they're lives are difficult, and salaries are low, and they are teaching privately to make money."

Official salaries have plummeted in real terms, teachers say.The headmaster at a standard government high school earns 12,000 Myanmar kyat per month -- about 10 dollars on today's widely used black market. Teachers earn just 4,500 kyat.

"How can they survive on that amount?" Lulu asked.They can't, and so teachers are forced onto the slippery slope of private tutoring, a practice illegal in Myanmar but common in virtually every school district, particularly in Yangon and Mandalay, teachers say.

Newly exiled teacher Wyne Win said students from poor families were the ultimate losers. Teachers have taken to leaving out key parts of curricula, only to teach them later in private tutorials that cost anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 kyat per month.

Briberies for good examination marks are de riguer. Competition for the few thousand annual spots in Myanmar's frequently shuttered universities leads to further exploitation.

"Their efforts to afford the skyrocketing commodity prices while maintaining good relations with their military rulers are damaging the integrity of teachers," said Wyne Win, who left Myanmar two months ago.

Another problem tarnishing the image of educators is a requirement that they pay homage in public to members of the junta and officials in military attire.In the past teachers were the recipients of such gestures, usually a bow and a clasping together of hands at the chest, by all segments of society.

But the tables have turned at the order of the junta, and "now teachers pay respect to military leaders," Wyne Win said.

Relations between the government and the education system have been strained for decades in Myanmar.The All Burma Students Union emerged in the 1930s to oppose British rule, and spawned the country's modern- day figurehead, General Aung San, and other national heroes.Its student union building, where teachers and students gathered to discuss political issues, was destroyed by Ne Win's military government in July 1962, and the union was outlawed.

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