Prospect Burma gives young Burmese people access to education: one of the United Nation's fundamental human rights.

Since 1988, Burmese universities have been repeatedly closed and education there remains in crisis. A whole generation has been deprived of education and training in vital skills; the effect on Burma's future is incalculable.

In response:


SCHOLARSHIPS

• We give scholarships to needy Burmese students, regardless of religious or ethnic background, some of whom are refugees. The short term effect is that individual lives are transformed by the qualifications they gain with our support, which enable them to find meaningful work and start to rebuild their lives.
  
  
• In the long term, we are helping to build a vital task force for Burma's future. All our students are committed to returning home when possible and to using their new expertise to rebuild civil society in Burma.  Of the 23 students who graduated in 2012, eleven have already returned to Burma, with eight of them working in the fields of education, health and journalism. Nine of them are doing Burma related work elsewhere and one has gone on to study for a PhD.
• In consultation with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi we have identified certain subjects as vital to the future of Burma. We make a priority of those subjects, which include public health, education, the environment, human rights and public administration. In many cases, when our students return, their skills are literally unique within Burma, as these are areas of expertise which are developing and changing fast while knowledge inside Burma stands still, isolated as it has been, from the rest of the world.
• In 2012/13 we spent £330,586 on scholarship grants excluding those awarded in India.
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  ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPUTER TRAINING SCHOOL, DELHI

• In addition to the main scholarship programme, we fund English language and vocational courses for Burmese refugees and migrants within Asia.  In Delhi, where there are over 5,000 Burmese refugees we have been running an English Language and computer school.  In 2012 the cost of running the school was in the region of £20,000.  Have a look at the school.

THE THINKING CLASSROOM FOUNDATION AND MIGRANT LEARNING SCHOOL

• We fund teacher training for Burmese teachers at the "Thinking Classroom Foundation" directed by Prospect Burma Trustee, Dr Thein Lwin, as well as the Migrant Learning Centre for Burmese refugees in Chiang Mai.         Dr Thein Lwin has recently moved back to Burma, after 20 years in exile, and "The Thinking Classroom Foundation" is now headquartered in Bago, and running workshops in critical thinking throughout Burma. Dr Thein Lwin also helped to found the Burmese Educationalists Network in 2011 to consider education reform inside Burma. The network members are students who have majored or are majoring in education, with the majority being scholarship alumni of Prospect Burma or OSF.
• The Migrant Learning Centre in Chiang Mai provides free English language, Thai language, computer studies and vocational learning to over 1,000 Burmese migrant workers in Thailand each year.
• In 2013 the project cost £107,673.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE INSIDE BURMA
Inside Burma we also fund an intensive English programme in Kachin State costing £4,500 per annum, and English language courses for Burmese students at the British Council in Rangoon costing £9,600.  You can read more about these programmes by clicking on Prospect Burma in Burma

OUR MOST VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION - OUR ALUMNI

• Why not have a look at some of our past student's stories here.