The quantity of highschool college students registered to take a key examination in Myanmar has plummeted almost 87% from the educational yr earlier than the army took management in a February 2021 coup d’etat, displaying the devastating affect of warfare on schooling.
This yr, greater than 146,500 college students registered for the military-administered college entrance examination held at 841 check facilities throughout the nation and overseas, in line with a March 13 report by World New Mild of Myanmar, an internet information outlet, citing Ministry of Schooling figures.
Throughout the 2019-20 educational yr, when the civilian-led Nationwide League for Democracy was nonetheless in energy, almost 970,800 college students registered for the check, additionally referred to as the matriculation examination, a benchmark for the nation’s educated workforce for many years.
About 128,725 college students out of those that registered sat for the English topic check on March 12, the second day of the examination interval, which runs Mar. 11-19, although almost 17,800 others didn’t present up for the examination, the report stated.
Underneath a brand new schooling system curriculum, college students full separate assessments in a number of topics, together with Burmese, English, arithmetic, chemistry, geography, physics, historical past, biology, economics and social science.
Conscription legislation
The event comes amid an exodus of younger folks following the ruling junta’s announcement of a conscription legislation in February to extend army manpower within the face of quite a few battlefield defeats and large-scale surrenders in current months throughout Myanmar’s civil warfare.
Younger persons are making use of for visas to go to Thailand or considering turning into monks, because the junta appears to be like to recruit as much as 50,000 women and men this yr, Radio Free Asia reported earlier.
When RFA contacted Kyaw Swar Thwin, director normal of the Division of Primary Schooling and a member of the junta’s press group, for remark, he claimed to don’t have any data of the present absentee test-taker scenario.
However dad and mom and lecturers stated combating between the army and insurgent forces has stored college students away from the exams, whereas others level to the sluggish financial system.
Take a look at directors in Kayah state, the place combating is intense, couldn’t open examination facilities.
Equally, in Chin state, greater than 1,300 registered college students didn’t take the examination, in line with a listing issued by the army council.
‘Nobody dares’
A mother or father of a pupil from Khaikam within the state’s Tedim township, instructed RFA that college students couldn’t sit for the college entrance exams as a result of residents, together with college students and lecturers, had fled with their households to flee the armed battle.
“Nobody dares to enter town proper now,” he stated, including that those that already left have but to return to Khaikam.
In Rakhine state, one other conflict-ridden area, 18,602 youths had been registered for the examination, however greater than half – some 10,071 – didn’t present up, in line with the junta’s listing.
The dearth of safety and blocked roads and waterways had been key causes, stated a resident of Kyaukphyu in Rakhine. “There are numerous people who find themselves uncomfortable coming for exams,” he stated, asking to not be recognized.
These taking the exams should carry a flag with the logo of the Ministry of Schooling, he stated. In the event that they don’t, the junta troopers would possibly “do one thing,” he stated. “Many dad and mom are involved. Consequently, a big variety of folks decide out of taking the exams altogether.”
With the stagnating financial system, some younger persons are prioritizing work over research, stated a highschool instructor in Yangon’s Mingaladon township.
“When the dad and mom had been slightly simpler with the financial scenario, youngsters might proceed their schooling,” the instructor stated. “However some youngsters have stopped attending faculty as a result of a scarcity of curiosity in schooling.”
Translated by Kalyar Lwin for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.