Education vs. revolution: school reopenings bring hard choices

When the Myanmar military reopened the nation’s schools in November, millions of students found themselves forced to choose between maintaining the boycott of state services and losing even more of their education.

Frontier MYANMAR | 17 JANUARY, 2022

Although Ko Linn Thet Maung was physically present in the classroom, he was not at all interested in what his teacher was saying. While his parents are against the February coup, when schools reopened on November 1, they made the hard decision not to boycott the government education system that answers to the junta.

When the military attempted to reopen schools in June of 2021, Linn Thet Maung’s parents were among the millions who pledged not to send their children to the junta-run schools, rallying behind the slogan “No need for a military slave education”. But by November, they had changed their minds.