Myanmar has two national-level matriculation examinations now: one administered by the Ministry of Schooling underneath the State Administration Council (SAC) army junta, the opposite performed by the Ministry of Schooling, Nationwide Unity Authorities (MOE, NUG), a parallel authorities constituted on April 17, 2021, within the wake of the February 2021 army coup.
The matriculation examination is the gateway for highschool college students to proceed their research at one of many greater than 170 universities in Myanmar. The scholars take the examination as soon as they end their Grade 11, the ultimate grade of highschool. It’s often performed as soon as per 12 months in March. As it’s the solely criterion for college admission in Myanmar, mother and father and college students make investments a lot of their assets in matriculation examinations for future profession views.
The matriculation examination’s historical past may be traced again to the army coup of 1962. The coup led the nation into state socialism, through which, the schooling coverage was envisioned in a manner that granted superior standing to science topics. To assist this coverage, two vital practices had been adopted. Firstly, the 1964 College Administration Regulation was enacted, through which all the colleges and better schooling establishments had been administered by a nationwide degree physique, and the autonomy of universities in recruiting college students was restricted. Secondly, the outcomes of the matriculation examination had been employed as a single criterion to allocate college students to college or specialisation in order that those that earn larger marks may very well be allotted into topics like sciences, drugs, maths, and engineering, in accordance with an schooling coverage that privileged sciences.
Moreover, in keeping with the 1973 College Administration Act and the College Admission Software Tips printed yearly, the college itself has no authority over the admission course of and decision-making. The Division of Greater Schooling underneath the Ministry of Schooling assigns college students to potential universities and specialisations based mostly on the aggregated marks of their matriculation examination. In consequence, it’s the duty of national-level academic administration to handle the matriculation examination and, so academic authorities pay a lot consideration to the safety of the examination. Subsequently, the occasions, statistics, information, rumours and corruption across the examination often seize the eye of most people.
Matriculation examination within the aftermath of the coup
Matriculation examinations couldn’t be performed by SAC’s schooling paperwork in 2021 because of nationwide demonstrations in opposition to the coup, the participation of civil servants and public service suppliers within the civil disobedience motion, and college closures attributable to COVID-19 outbreaks.
Though campus activism and politicising schooling are prevalent within the historical past of Myanmar, it’s the first time in historical past that the matriculation examination has been politicised to such an extent. After the failure of two makes an attempt to reopen colleges in June and November of 2021, the army’s schooling ministry began to politicise the matriculation examination. It launched its name for software to the 2022 examination on 11 November 2021.
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The information unfold on media, and there was debate among the many public on whether or not highschool college students ought to register for the examination or not. In the meantime, there are additionally some rumours that the army’s schooling ministry has threatened the scholars to take exams by warning that these college students who didn’t sit for the examination can be blacklisted within the subsequent 12 months’s examination. For the army’s MOE, with the ability to conduct a nationwide examination is a key indicator that the nation was of their management, and so they had been caring for the schooling of the general public, attracting home assist. Whereas it’s nonetheless difficult for the NUG to have the ability to ship on-ground schooling providers, mother and father and college students face the dilemma of whether or not to sit down for the examination or boycott it to affirm their solidarity with the country-wide civil disobedience motion.
Recognition of the issue
The announcement of the army’s name for software to matriculation examinations and the recognition of debate round it turned the focusing occasion for the NUG. As a countermove, its schooling ministry launched a press release on 15 November 2021, 4 days after SAC’s name for examination purposes, saying that each one the schooling actions, grade promotions and matriculation examinations performed by MOE of SAC are illegitimate as SAC itself has not been recognised by the worldwide neighborhood—nor, most significantly, by the folks of Myanmar.
Statistics across the matriculation examination performed by SAC additionally turned a urgent indicator and inspired the decision-makers within the NUG to pay a lot political consideration to it. Within the 2022 matriculation examination administered by the junta, solely 281,741 college students out of 312,420 registered college students took the examination. This represents solely round 30% of the before-coup inhabitants of greater than 900,000 examination takers (see Determine 1 beneath). Such statistics may very well be translated that the remaining 70% of the highschool college students’ inhabitants are becoming a member of the CDM and never cooperating with the army administration.
Determine 1: Variety of college students taking matriculation examination, 2015–2022
The coverage discourses on examination coverage have additionally highlighted that the statistical figures of army examinations captured the eye of the folks in and across the NUG’s schooling ministry. There have been a number of discussions throughout the NUG about tips on how to counter the army’s matriculation examination. A number of policymakers and educationists supporting NUG and its interim schooling service provision, have fearful about the way forward for these college students who boycotted the army examination. As well as, they had been anxious that the scholars would contemplate taking the examination performed by SAC the next 12 months if NUG authorities couldn’t provoke any actions referring to the matriculation examination. For these policymakers, it implies that the home legitimacy of the NUG is diminished. Therefore, the statistical figures of army examination additionally function indicators which push the NUG to lastly prioritise conducting the rivalry matriculation examination.
The beneficial political state of affairs
In terms of politicising the matriculation examination, it’s the nationwide temper that the majority pressed the NUG administration to conduct a rival matriculation examination. The nationwide temper of post-coup Myanmar concerning the military-conducted matriculation examination is mirrored within the country-wide civil disobedience motion (CDM). underneath which civil servants refused to work underneath the army and folks weren’t cooperating with its administration.
Though the marketing campaign was first kicked off by healthcare employees, lecturers and administrative employees within the schooling sector shared the vast majority of the CDM inhabitants. Initially, it’s estimated that greater than 300,000 schooling employees participated in CDM. As of April 2021, in keeping with ISP Myanmar, the army has launched that greater than 27% of major and secondary schooling employees and 56% of tertiary schooling employees are absent at their office—that means that they’ve joined the CDM.
A number of universities declared themselves as CDM universities and constituted ‘Interim College Councils’ to handle the affairs of the college themselves. Main and secondary schooling employees, constituting township schooling boards, refusing to comply with army orders. As of Oct 2021, 279 township schooling boards (out of 330 townships throughout the nation) and 235 college councils (out of 297 universities throughout the nation) are affiliated with the NUG.
In the meantime, a majority of the scholar inhabitants in major, secondary and tertiary schooling refused to attend the colleges reopened by the army. Solely 1 / 4 of 12 million major and secondary college students and only a few college college students enrolled for the brand new college 12 months in June 2021, both because of displaying their solidarity with CDM or insufficient COVID-19 prevention measures ready by army administration at college.
This country-wide CDM brought on the NUG not solely to supply schooling providers but in addition to pay good consideration to the army’s schooling insurance policies and to counterattack if essential. It is because such an motion might gas the momentum of CDM and accumulate home assist for the NUG. By the point the army’s schooling ministry introduced the matriculation examination as aforementioned, the NUG had been alarmed to give attention to it and to conduct their very own nationally standardised examination.
Along with the nationwide temper, the assist of the curiosity teams encourages the NUG to prioritise conducting a rival matriculation examination. Some interim college councils that are affiliated with MOE, NUG, have publicly introduced that the college wouldn’t recognise the matriculation examination performed by SAC in 2022 and wouldn’t permit enrolling these college students taking the 2022 examination.
For example, greater than 20 councils of technological universities and college students’ unions launched statements unrecognizing the examinations underneath SAC and have urged the mother and father and college students to not sit for the examination as a method to in opposition to the army regime and preserve proceed the country-wide civil disobedience motion. Such assist from its affiliated college councils and scholar unions pressed the NUG to provoke a rival examination to counter the army administration. Furthermore, it’s probably that the cupboard of NUG assumed that conducting such matriculation examination would serve its personal political pursuits, fuelling the continued nationwide CDM and thereafter growing its legitimacy domestically.
A Coverage Window
Coverage entrepreneurs — individuals who want to speculate his/her assets in return for the longer term coverage they favour, are vital within the Myanmar examination case. They’re invisible members— principally teams of students, educationists and specialists in evaluation and examination. They boycotted the army’s academic actions, anonymously affiliated with the NUG’s schooling ministry, and had been concerned in its totally different schooling actions.
They’ve put their assets comparable to time, information and abilities into totally different NUG schooling actions as a strategy to present their opposition to the army coup. These specialists in evaluation and examination helped draft an evaluation coverage for the NUG’s home-based schooling program. Their efforts have been a big consider pushing the NUG to think about conducting its personal matriculation examination. Earlier than the army deliberate to conduct the matriculation examination, they sought to advocate that the NUG conduct or at the very least contemplate conducting the matriculation examination. For them, it’s believed that the NUG schooling ministry wanted to be proactive in contemplating conducting a rival matriculation examination because the army would take political benefits from the examination. When the army determined to conduct the 2022 matriculation examination in November 2021, it was a politically beneficial time or a coverage window for these evaluation teachers to push their pet proposal of growing a NUG matriculation examination.
Furthermore, my evaluation of the coverage paperwork additionally means that the evaluation specialists developed the NUG’s matriculation examination coverage proposal to pertain to some standards comparable to technical feasibility, congruence with the values of neighborhood members and anticipation of future constraints comparable to finances and receptivity of the general public and politicians amidst political instabilities. First, the evaluation coverage got here together with two-hour-long multiple-choice questions that are environment friendly in marking, and related for interim resistance governments like MOE, NUG to manage nicely. Up to now, the matriculation examination had a number of essay-type questions which required 1000’s of lecturers to collect in a selected college for a number of days to mark and compile knowledge. This might not be the case for the NUG’s examination as a result of it’s based mostly on multiple-choice gadgets which may very well be simply marked.
Moreover, by contemplating the NUG’s restricted on-ground schooling providers and the proximity of the scholars to battle, the coverage proposed each internet-based and paper-based assessments at on-ground evaluation centres. It permits college students to take the examination at a number of examination durations inside a 12 months—in 2023, in February and August—at their comfort.
As well as, an enormous shift from army matriculation is that it assured to evaluate the higher-order pondering comparable to software, analytical pondering and inventive problem-solving abilities of Bloom’s Taxonomy with a competency-based grading system. That is in congruence with the values of neighborhood members, because the schooling neighborhood in Myanmar has been lengthy for a paradigm shift in evaluation in Myanmar from memorisation-based to competency-based evaluation in the course of the nation’s schooling reform interval throughout 2011–2021. In an interview, one neighborhood arithmetic trainer talked about that he’s receptive to the query kind of the NUG’s examination, particularly for the arithmetic topics, as a result of, for instance, in Geometry, the examination doesn’t require college students to jog down the identify of a theorem precisely as within the before-coup examination, which renders memorisation as an alternative of logical reasoning.
Most significantly, additionally it is deemed that the matriculation examination proposal anticipated the longer term constraints of public acceptability. In an interview with an individual from a township schooling board, constituted within the post-coup interval, he talked about that the people who find themselves engaged on on-ground schooling within the conflict-affected areas accepted that they want a matriculation examination which isn’t administered by SAC.
It is very important word right here that a few of the coverage entrepreneurs across the NUG ministry of schooling had been additionally concerned in township schooling boards, and, for them, it implies that a rivalry examination would fill this hole and will doubtlessly enhance their home legitimacy. Therefore, the coverage resolution connected to the requirement of examination for greater than 70% of the highschool scholar inhabitants who boycotted the SAC’s examination and countering SAC’s examination lastly led to opening a coverage window for the NUG to conduct its personal matriculation examination.
The affect on college students
Finally, college students are these most impacted by how Myanmar’s schooling system has been affected by the 2021 coup. The army killed and detained lecturers and college students, and used colleges and college campuses as bases for army operations. It then prolonged its manipulation to matriculation examination via politicisation. To counter such an issue, when the political local weather is beneficial and coverage options can be found, the NUG’s schooling ministry has initiated matriculation examinations as a part of its political battles with the SAC.
Each the SAC and NUG exams have good and weak factors. Firstly, taking SAC’s examination is incompatible with society’s values and the CDM. Mother and father throughout Myanmar boycotted the military-led education and didn’t let their youngsters take the matriculation examination to point out their solidarity with the country-wide CDM or as a result of they don’t imagine within the high quality of lecturers underneath the army schooling system. Alternatively, taking the NUG’s examination would possibly result in safety considerations and to conditions the place future schooling pathways with the longer term recognition of NUG-issued credentials being unsure In consequence, the scholars face ambiguity about tips on how to proceed with their academic pathways. (On the time of writing, the NUG’s schooling ministry has performed their model of the matriculation examination twice, and 16 universities affiliated with them not too long ago welcomed the brand new college students.)
Such a state of affairs additionally exacerbates the disparity among the many college students. Some college students, who might afford it, determined to organize for internationally recognised certificates comparable to GED and IGCSE to keep away from the dilemma. In the meantime, others drop out of college, take up arms, or flee because of battle of their areas. As a consequence, the scholars lose their hopes and future, resulting in the deterioration of human capital and the longer term growth of Myanmar.