More than 125,000 secondary school teachers in Myanmar have been made available by the military because they have joined a political disobedience movement to oppose military coup on February 1, said an official of the teachers’ union.
The military junta’s move to make teachers available came just days before the start of the new school year, which some teachers and parents are boycotting as part of a campaign that has paralyzed the country since the coup halted a decade of democratic reforms.
A total of 125,900 schoolteachers had been suspended until Saturday, said a teacher union official, who declined to speak out because of fears of retaliation. He is already on the list of wanted by the junta with accusations of incitement to stop.
In Myanmar 430,000 schoolteachers were enrolled, according to the latest figures, two years ago.
“These are just moves to threaten people to go back to work. “If they actually fire so many people, the whole system will stop working,” said the official, who is also a teacher. He added that he had been told that the charges against him would be dropped if he returned to work.
Reuters could not be reached for comment by the junta spokesman or the education ministry. The state newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar called on teachers and students to return to schools to restart the education system.
The disruption of schools comes with the health sector and government and private companies since the Southeast Asian country sank into chaos following the coup and the arrest of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
About 19,500 university staff were also made available, according to the teachers’ union.
Parents will keep their children at home
Registration begins next week for the school year, which begins in June, but some parents have said they plan to keep their children out of school.
“I am not going to enroll my daughter because I do not want her to be educated by a military dictatorship. “I’m also worried about her safety,” said Mead, 42, whose daughter is 14 years old.
Students, who were at the forefront of daily protests in which hundreds of people were killed by security forces, also said they planned to boycott classrooms.
“I will only go back to school if we go back to democracy,” said Lynn, 18.
Myanmar’s education system was already one of the poorest in the region – ranking 92nd out of 93 countries, according to a 2020 global survey.
Even under the leadership of Suu Kyi, who had made education a priority, spending was below 2% of GDP. That was one of the lowest rates in the world, according to the World Bank.
A shadowy national unity government formed by forces loyal to Aung San Suu Kyi has said it will do all it can to support teachers and students – urging foreign donors to cut funding to the junta-controlled Ministry of Education.
“We will work with Myanmar teachers who refuse to support the barbaric army,” Sasha, who gave only his first name and is a spokesman for the national unity government, told Reuters in an email. “These great and brave teachers will never be left alone.”
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