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Suggested Policies to Improve the Quality of Primary Education in Myanmar. Sheldon Shaeffer CESR/UNICEF-MDEF Consultant. Rethinking the Challenges.
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Suggested Policies to Improve the Quality of Primary Education in Myanmar Sheldon Shaeffer CESR/UNICEF-MDEF Consultant
Rethinking the Challenges • Why do Grade 1 classes often have the least experienced and/or trained teachers and the highest pupil-teacher ratios? (And why is Grade 5 the opposite?) • 5-10% of children in Myanmar have a disability – perhaps 400,00 between the ages of 5-14. How many are in school? How many could be in school? • Why do many children never enroll or fail in school?
Rethinking the Challenges • Why is blame for school failure placed more often on children and their families rather than on the education system and school? • Why do we use the word “drop-out” when most “drop-outs” are usually “push-outs” from the school? • Why do many Ministry of Education staff, especially head teachers, feel more accountable UP the system rather than OUT to the community? • Why do most MOEs celebrate achievements in national NERs rather than worry about sub-national disparities and net NON-enrolment and NON-completion rates?
Context: Myanmar’s Commitment toFulfilling the Right to Education Myanmar has committed itself to fulfill the right to education through a range of national and international instruments: • The Myanmar Constitution • The Convention on the Rights of the Child • The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women • The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities • Education for All • The Millennium Development Goals
Key Messages An education system of good quality must be: • rights-based and equity-focused, with equality and non-discrimination as central principles • based on a comprehensive, systematic framework – vision, objectives, policies, strategies, standards, and action plans • child-centred, focused on the best interests of the child • child-seeking, actively looking for children not in school and getting them into school and succeeding
Key Outcomes for Myanmar’s Children • Universal access to basic education, starting with ECCD centres at age 3-4 and kindergarten at age 5 • Successful early learning to lay the foundations for later learning and life • Completion of primary school and equitable opportunities to continue to higher levels of education
Key Goals for the Education System (1) • Acoherent, seamless transition from ECCD centres through the early grades of primary school • Readiness: “All children ready for school” and “all schools ready for children” • Inclusion: the elimination of all barriers to school and to learning • Healthy, safe, and protective learning environments • Early mastery of numeracy and of literacy in Myanmar and English based on a language policy which promotes initial instruction and literacy in the child’s mother tongue • Enhanced teacher capacity in the competencies needed to promote inclusive, child-friendly, and child-centred classrooms and schools
Key Goals for the Education System (2) • Enhanced management capacityof head teachers and inspectors/supervisors to both improve school management and enhance classroom practice • All schools meeting (and eventually exceeding) “minimum service standards” • Desired outcomes for all children in Myanmar: • critical thinking • creativity • respect for diversity and difference • demonstrating national values and behaviours • valuing their own culture and language, traditions and heritage
Key Components of Quality Schools An education system and schools of good quality must be: • inclusive of all children • academically effective • healthy, safe, and protective • participatory of children, families, and communities • with visionary, effective leadership
Inclusive: Learners in Remote Areas • Devise affordable and feasible measures to attract good quality teachers to remote and rural areas • In small schools in rural and remote areas, set a student-teacher ratio based not on one teacher per class but rather one teacher per X number of students (e.g., 25 students) IT IS INEFFICIENT TO PUT ONE TEACHER IN EVERY GRADE IN SMALL SCHOOLS. • Actively promote the use of multi-grade teaching in such small schools MULTIGRADE TEACHING IS THE PEDAGOGY OF FIRST CHOICE IN MANY MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD.
Inclusive: Learners with Disabilities • Actively find and enroll children with disabilities • Ensure that any new schools and any renovations of existing schools fulfill the international standards of accessibility in terms of disability • Provide pre-service and in-service teacher training in the identification of developmental delays and disabilities and in their possible mitigation in the classroom • Provide specialised resource teachersto support teachers in “regular schools” toward the genuine inclusion of learners in their classrooms • Provide assistive devices to children who can benefit from them (hearing aids and eyeglasses) • Promote activities to develop positive attitudes towards persons with disabilities
Inclusive: Learners from Ethnic Minorities • Promote the use of mother tongue as the language of instruction and for initial literacy (e.g., from ECCD centres through Grade 3 or longer) beginning in areas where most people speak one language • For these selected languages, prepare necessary learning materials • Recruit and train more teachers from ethnic minorities ensuring that they know both how to teach using mother tongue and how to manage the transition to the national language • oral Myanmar and Englishin the early grades • Myanmar literacy after mastery of the mother tongue • English literacy after mastery of Myanmar (i.e., Grade 6)
Inclusive: Learners in Extreme Poverty • Eliminate any extra incidental school expenses for impoverished families not covered under “free education” • Explore the possibility of providing conditional cash transfers to these families to encourage them to enroll their children in school • Research the extent and seriousness of the private tuition fee problem and implement policies to reduce its impact on teaching processes and on poor families
Inclusive: Learners in Emergencies • Ensure that the Ministry of Education has in place a comprehensive Disaster Risk Reduction Plan which can help the system and individual schools anticipate, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover from natural and manmade disasters and emergencies • As new schools are built and old ones renovated, ensure that they meet the international standards for disaster-resistant “safe schools” • Ensure that children are able to continue education during emergencies in a healthy, safe, protective environment
Inclusive: Learners in (Post) Conflict Areas Given that the consequences of violence against children are both immediate and long-lasting and that children exposed to violence and risk (including the risk of unexploded ordnance) can experience physical and psychological problems later in life and sometimes harm themselves and/or others: • Promote inclusive, conflict-sensitive education as key to peace-building, contributing to the development of positive attitudes towards all groups and celebrating difference, which is fundamental to building cohesive, peaceful, prosperous societies • Promote mine-risk education in affected areas
Inclusive: Learners Affected by HIV/AIDS • Develop and disseminate widely a clear, strong Ministry of Education HIV/AIDS policywhich prohibits discrimination in the enrolment and handling of HIV/AIDS-affected children in school • Ensure that pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes provide essential information on both HIV and AIDS prevention and transmission(including on how the virus is NOT transmitted) and on the handling of students affected by HIV and AIDS • Promote programmes, materials, and practices among teachers, communities and children that promote positive attitudes and combat stigma against PLWHA to support effective implementation of polices
Other Excluded Learners • Children from migrant families in Thailand who are likely to return to Myanmar need systematic approaches to recognition of prior learning and reintegration into the education system • Child soldiers who have been released from the Tatmadaw need systematic channels of support to reintegrate into the education system (formal/non-formal; vocational training) • Other groups: girls (early marriage; pregnancy; sibling care); street children and working children….. AND MANY CHILDREN SUFFER FROM MULTIPLE FACTORS OF EXCLUSION – A RURAL, ETHNIC MINORITY GIRL WITH A DISABILITY HAS VERY LITTLE CHANCE OF EVER GETTING TO SCHOOL
Assessing Disparities of Outcomes (youth literacy rates - urban/rural, ethnicity, gender) • 3 of every 4 women who die are indigenous. Ethnic disparities are wider than in other countries with large indigenous populations. • Women in Alta Vrapaz are 4 times as likely to die than women from Sacatepequez, near the capital
Learners in the Monastic System Another 300,000 study in monastic schools… • Promote greater collaborationamong MOE, MORA, and the monastic system to strengthen the MOE and monastic systems (without sacrificing the latter’s flexibility, inclusiveness, and community support) • Collect more accurate data on the size and scope of the monastic system, on its costs and budgets, and on faith-based systems • Improve monastic school system management – goals, quality indicators, administrative guidelines, etc. • Disseminate good practices of the monastic system • Provide support to monastic education reforms – i.e., the work of the Monastic Education Development Group and of the Center for Promotion of Monastic Education
Learners in Ethnic Education Systems Perhaps 400,000 or more children study in ethnic education systems both in Myanmar and in Thailand. Exploring the nature and future of these systems is essential in the further development of education. • Depending on the circumstances, establish stronger linkages between the formal education system and each ethnic systemin order to strengthen the latter (without sacrificing their relative independence, flexibility, and community support) in order to promote a common vision for – and develop steps towards – a stronger, more unified Myanmar
