Why Myanmar?

The world’s forgotten crisis

For anyone new to Myanmar – formerly Burma, this beautiful country in South East Asia has become one of the world’s worst conflict and humanitarian crisis zones since a military junta took power by force in February 2021.

Myanmar’s people widely reject the junta’s power grab. Hundreds of thousands of people have either taken up arms or are disrupting the junta’s efforts to impose a new normal. The junta has responded with indiscriminate airstrikes, burnings, killings and denial of basic services. The results have been catastrophic:

• 17.6 million people - nearly a third of the population - are in humanitarian need, up from 1 million pre-coup.

• 1.8 million people are displaced by conflict within Myanmar’s borders. There are over 1.1 million refugees in neighbouring countries, including nearly a million Rohingya in Bangladesh.

• 30,000 people killed - though estimates vary widely, and the junta denies access to journalists and researchers who could verify numbers.

Education - a key focus in the conflict

At first sight, education seems an unlikely focus for a conflict. But education gives people power to think, organise and innovate.

In most countries this is seen as a good thing. But, in Myanmar, educating young people runs contrary to the junta’s apparent strategy to keep the population weak and docile. It bombs and burns schools. More than 500 schools have been attacked or occupied. More than 150 people in the education sector have been murdered by junta soldiers. More than 400,000 teachers are in hiding.

The impact on education is sobering. The number of high school graduates has dropped by over 80% since the coup, to only about 6% of the young people per school year. The few who do graduate have received poor quality rote education which teaches them not to memorise what they are told, and not to question or challenge.

Myanmar’s long term future

Decades of underinvestment by successive junta regimes has left Myanmar ranked among the world’s worst in terms of health, economy and infrastructure. Since the 2021 coup, this has worsened.

Without education, Generation Z (Gen Z) will lack skills and knowledge to make their communities resilient to disease, natural disaster, economic damage and conflict - all of which are acute dangers in Myanmar.

Furthermore, they will not be able to build governance, justice, democracy and the foundations of a prosperous, peaceful society. Without education, there is no other long term outcome than the country’s downward spiral continuing.

Step forward…Gen Z

Myanmar has one hope for its future: its next generation. Gen Z is the first that had access to the outside world, via the internet. They had a taste of freedom and refuse to return to a life of oppression and fear.

Many cannot or will not take up arms. The armed conflict has no end in sight so, instead, they are learning skills and knowledge to build a sustainable future for their communities.

In the short term, education is a way for young people to avoid trafficking and abuse. In the long term, it is the only way Myanmar can develop a cohort of skilled people to create an alternative, peaceful future from the ashes of conflict.

These young people are passionate, talented, and hard working. Instead of running and doing nothing, they are upskilling themselves now to be the agents of change their country will need in the years ahead.