Transition of schooling education in Myanmar: a comparative institutional analysis

ABSTRACT

Pedagogical reform is an institutional change that involves revising the rules of the game in practice, the legitimacy of which depends on political and legislative contexts. In the context of Myanmar’s experience transitioning into a democratic society, this study discusses the changes in theoretical equilibria concerning pedagogical practices with reference to the changes in the links between the national regime, education policies, and teacher preference about practices. As the country transitioned from a junta to a civilian government, education policies became more democratised. However, the coup d’état of February 2021 could retract these changes.

KEYWORDS:

• Myanmar
• transition
• comparative institutional analysis
• democratisation
• junta

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It should be noted that while this study mainly discusses the contexts of the governmental schools, some ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) run their own schooling systems in Myanmar to preserve their culture and language. Such education systems exist in, for example, the states of Karen (Jolliffe 2017; South 2022), Mon (Bertrand 2022; South 2022), Kachin (Bertrand 2022; Jagger 2018; South 2022) and Shan (South 2022) with curricula almost equivalent to the one used by the government schools, but using their ethnic mother tongues as the media of instruction (South 2022).