Off the fields and back to school

by Tin Htet Paing

KAYAH, MYANMAR - Cecilia doesn’t want her father to come back from the rehabilitation centre if he still hates her for studying. “Just study and don’t eat!” he would drunkenly tell her each time he found her studying at home. 

CECILIA, 18, WORKS ON A GROUP EXCERCISE WITH HER CLASSMATES DURING THE AFTERNOON NFMSE CLASS AT BEHS LOILIN LAY, IN LOILIN LAY, LOIKAW
 ©UNICEF Myanmar/2019/Min Zayar Oo

“I don’t want to be like my father,” said the 18-year-old Karenni girl, almost unapologetically, as she sat inside her classroom at a school just outside of Loikaw in Myanmar’s eastern state of Kayah. “I want to become an educated parent who can show her children the right way,” she explained. 

Cecilia is one of the fourteen students attending their sixth and final semester of the UNICEF-supported Non-Formal Middle School Education (NFMSE) Center in Loilin Lay, Kayah State. 

The three-year NFMSE programme, developed with the Ministry of Education through consultation with partners including UNICEF, with support from the Myanmar Literacy Resource Center and UNESCO, is tailored for teenaged children who have dropped out from formal education, aiming to provide another chance for young people to continue their studies. 

When she was about 12 years old, Cecilia decided to quit school due to her illness and because of her parents’ difficulties in paying for her education. 

After five years of not going to school, Cecilia found out about the NFMSE programme through a highschool teacher and a village administrator in Loinlin Lay, also thanks to one of her friends who was already there. “I discovered that the teaching methods were different and more practical. This inspired me to restart my studies,” she said. “Now I understand the teachers’ explanations and we have fun group discussions.”

NFMSE is a pilot programme equivalent to the four-year a formal secondary, or middle, school curriculum and is divided into six semesters each lasting five months. The pilot was launched in Loikaw as well as in Yangon Region’s Dala and Hlaing Tharyar townships, Mon State’s Kyaikhto township, Irrawaddy Region’s Hinthada township, Kachin State’s Myitkyina township, Rakhine State’s Sittwe township, and at the Myawaddy-Mae Sot border. UNICEF is supporting in three townships in Loikaw, Myitkyina and Sittwe until the end of the pilot in June 2019. 

In addition to standard subjects in English, mathematics and general science, the NFMSE curriculum includes vocational training in areas such as agriculture, handicrafts and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). 

English is Cecilia’s favourite subject. “I like being able to read and understand another language,” she said with a broad smile. “Especially English, because we see these words everywhere.”

Being the most active student in the class, she always leads her classmates in group activities. This was not the same when she attended the government school. Cecilia describes how teachers still struggled to adapt to the child-centred education system in classes which typically had 50 or more pupils in them. This made it difficult for her to understand the lessons and ultimately made her very unhappy at school.

CECILIA, 18, WHO'S A STUDENT FROM THE NFMSE PROGRAM, ALSO TEACHES AT THE ST. JOSEPH NURSERY IN LOILIN LAY, LOIKAW, KAYAH STATE, MYANMAR.
©UNICEF Myanmar/2019/Min Zayar Oo

Cecilia is currently both a student and a nursery school teacher. She takes care of a room full of lively 3-year-old toddlers, which includes her youngest sister, at St. Joseph’s nursery school in Loilin Lay. Even though she started volunteering at the nursery school before she enrolled in the programme, the continuation of studies has improved her in many ways, according to her colleagues. 

“She is much more active and confident now,” says Sister Assumpta Bya Mar who also teaches at the nursery school. “She had never read English to the children before, but she does a lot now.” 

Back to school

Myanmar’s 2014 census indicated that almost half a million children aged between 7 and 15 had never attended school. Less than a third of teenagers aged between 15 and 19 went to school and some 1.2 million children aged 5 to 17 were recorded as working. 

“NFMSE is a much-needed programme for those who have dropped out of school, for whatever reason,” said U Thein Tun Soe, a retired schoolteacher and lead facilitator of the UNICEF-supported programme in Loilin Lay. “Its curriculum provides life skills that can really guide children’s lives.”

The teachers at the NFMSE centre, each received a nine-day training to deliver non-formal education lessons for the last semester. Despite a total of 48 students who enrolled in the programme’s first semester two years ago, only 19 stayed for this year’s final semester. 

“Many eighth graders who enrolled in the programme did not want to spend another three years to finish the education, and others quit to fully commit to working,” said U Moe, Deputy Township Education Officer in Loikaw. “I hope that, if this programme opens the door to improve a child’s future, many more who dropped out will want to join. It would be better if we could launch similar programmes in places where there are already many child workers.”

For Cecilia, her decision to continue education has changed her life. “I would have become a farmer and be married by now if I hadn’t attended this programme,” she said. “I am aiming to become a nurse while I continue teaching nursery children. I now have hope for my future. 

“And then, maybe in the next ten or twenty years, I will guide my children’s lives in the right direction.”