Final-Edition

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I
n Inaccessible and Under-Resourced the Women and Child Rights Project (WCRP), a project
of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), draws on interviews with 146
individuals, largely in 17 predominantly Mon villages in Ye Township (Mon State),
Kyainnseikyi Township (Karen State) and Yebyu Township (Tenasserim Division) to present an
exploration of education challenges in rural Mon regions. In this report WCRP focuses on two
key areas of concern – education dropout and resource constraints – to highlight the
significant challenges faced by both students and teachers in rural Mon villages.
WCRP expresses concern that, despite some progress on national-level education reform, the
benefits of reform have yet to be seen in rural ethnic areas of the country. Across governmentled
Basic Education and ‘Mixed’ Schools, and non-state Mon National Education Committee
(MNEC) Mon National Schools, WCRP’s main findings were that education in rural Mon regions
remains inaccessible for children from poor families and that village schools remain chronically
under-resourced. More specifically, WCRP found that:
Despite the Burmese/Myanmar government’s commitment to Millennium
Development Goal No. 2 (Universal Completion of Primary Education), over a third of
children who stated when they had left education dropped out before completing
Primary School. Another third dropped out immediately following Primary School
completion, failing to make the transition to Secondary Education.
Three quarters of students who gave reasons why they had dropped out from
education cited problems connected to livelihood difficulties. Factors linking poverty
to dropout included: children needing to work to supplement their family’s income,
unaffordable costs of education (particularly at Secondary level), family labour
migration and the effects of poverty on community attitudes to education.
14 of 23 rural village schools surveyed indicated problems with insufficient material
or human resources. While MNEC Mon National schools suffered the greatest
deficiencies, significant problems were also noted in government-led schools.
Given these findings, WCRP calls for all parties concerned with education in Mon regions,
including the Burmese/Myanmar government, MNEC and international aid organisations, to
undertake all necessary measures to address the concerns highlighted in this report. In
particular, all parties must take comprehensive action to limit the effects of poverty on school
attendance and to strengthen resources available to rural village schools. WCRP hopes that
the data contained within this report may be used as a starting point for follow-up research
and stepped-up engagement, facilitating measures that may slowly begin to improve
education prospects for some of Burma’s most marginalised children.
7 Inaccessible and Under-Resourced