mettavalokanaya_international_buddhist_magazine_november_2019

Forming an
Authentic
Buddhist
Education….
The current official Buddhist
Monastic Education System in
Myanmar is especially meant
for Buddhist monks and nuns
although no prohibition for lay people
to follow. This system applies only final
summative examination to decide
the qualification of the students. No
successive and holistic assessments
on the students during daily class time
are not taken. Therefore, teachers and
students just try to focus on doing well
in the exam so that they would get
good mark. The nature of the questions
encourages the students to learn the
lessons by heart from the prescribed
texts. It forcibly drives the students to
undergo rote learning.
As the system is exam oriented,
teachers and students don’t care
the objective of the curriculum and
examinations. In fact, it would be right
to say that most of them don’t know
the objective of them. When we analyze
carefully, we found that the current
monastic education system we are
now following cannot meet the aim
of the curriculum. When the students
State Advisor,
Aggamahasaddha-
-majotikadhaja,
President Excellent Award,
President, Phaung Daw Oo
International
University,
Mandalay, Myanmar.
Most Venerable Nayaka
Maha Thero
Myanmar
just follow rote learning system, they
don’t really understand what the
thematic meaning of the Buddhist texts.
Worse than ever is that the intense
vein competition among the different
monastic schools, Bhikkhu teachers and
students happen throughout the nation
aiming to gain fame and prosperous from
the eminent lay people of the country.
This freak instance in the Sangha circle
in Myanmar is diametrically oppose the
noble teaching of the Buddha. The worst
reality is that 80% of the students who
fail the exam are likely to face the sack
of their lives.
Another important matter
happening in this education system is
that most of the monastic teachers in
Myanmar are not familiar to the nature
of education and child psychologies
which are desperately important in
teaching the youths. Successively, no
research: no collective and holistic
evaluations and reviews on the education
system are not able to be done by the
teachers. As a matter of fact, the present
education (examination) system is the
legacy of British colony. After British had
conquered the country, she installed her
education system into Myanmar, the
then Burma.
Following that system Buddhist
monastic education also held
examinations to produce monastic
scholar. Although the present Great
Britain no more exercise that system
since it has already outdated long time
ago, Myanmar remain practicing till now.
Accordingly, the quality of the teachers
and students, as a vicious circle, has
been long lagging far behind the modern
world. The quality of Buddhist education
“Buddhist
Education
is most
important”….
before the British conquest was quite
good as it simply focused on teaching
and learning throughout the full texts.
When the teachers heedfully concerned
the understanding of the students to the
thematic teaching of the Buddha, they
became qualify scholars. Some of the
leading monks in monastic education
today don’t accept this conception
pointing out that there are monk scholars
produced by the present education
system. But 99% of the students out of
20% exam passed students cannot read
the Buddhist Pali scriptures without
the help of translation books. This is
sorrowful waste of the human resources
for the Sasana and Nation. Considerable
numbers of the leading monks realize
this freak situation and try to find
possible ways to reform it. However,
they encounter difficulties in searching
for common answer for this problem,
as a result of the vicious circle of the
education system has been exercising
long time. After all they fall back in the
vicious circle again. This is some brief
and concrete background information of
the present monastic education system
practicing in Myanmar. More detail
and factual investigations and powerful
recommendations are needed to reform
this system effectively.
24
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