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One year after the coup, Myanmar children face learning, life loss
The Myanmar junta has fired over 125,000 teachers, as well as more than 13,000 professors and university staff, accounting for 45 percent of all teaching and administration staff at universities.
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War knows no age: Refugee children from Myanmar, who fled after a surge in violence as the military cracks down on rebel groups, cook at a camp near the Myanmar-Thailand border in Kayin state, on Monday. (AFP/Stringer)
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lobally, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional classroom education. However, hybrid or online learning has been industrialized in many parts of the world, allowing professors and teachers to move away from traditional classroom teaching to this new arrangement.
Moreover, many studies have been conducted on the experiences and challenges of educators in adopting such new technology and approaches, whereas some studies have been conducted on students who follow online learning as part of efforts to improve the quality of education.
In Myanmar, more than 12 million children have lost access to education since early 2020, after all schools and universities were closed to curb the surge in COVID-19 cases. But the country, unlike neighboring countries, lacks knowledge and infrastructure to implement online learning,
Even before the pandemic, Myanmar was one of the countries with the highest rates of child marriage, with 16 percent of girls marrying before the age of 18 in 2013. In the same year, one in 11 children were trapped in child labor and deprived of childhood, health and education due to poverty and conflict, and more than 2 million children were out of school.
Amid a year of battling with COVID-19 and its destructive impact on education, health, economy and people’s well-being across the country, the military illegitimately took over the state power on Feb. 1, 2021. Subsequently, the civilian government's plan to vaccinate educators as the priority group and reopen schools has crumbled.
Children and teachers have been exposed to a higher risk of life insecurity since military personnel seized more than 60 university and school campuses, and attacked more than 103 schools and other facilities, causing damage four months after the coup.
Furthermore, the military ordered that schools be reopened without imposing strict health protocols, just to show the regime had stabilized the country following the coup amid a surge in COVID-19 cases. The international community therefore called for the removal of military personnel from school and university campuses to protect the well-being of students and teachers.
