Ministry of Education standards don’t help Karenni

A Karenni community based organization has accused the Burma government’s regulation for schools of being to expensive for villagers to comply with.

The Kayan New Generation Youths (KNGY) working on educational development inside Kayah (Karenni) State said the Ministry of Education should reduce its standard on school sizes.

The KNGY’s chairman, Khon Bi Htoo, told Karen News that the Ministry of Education in Kayah State, insists that primary schools must have five classrooms in a 30-60 foot square building and the school must have at least 80 students which is limited by from Kayah State.

Khon Bi Htoo said.

“The people in our regions cannot support the buildings’ fees. The numbers of students are not reaching 80, even when combining four villages.”

Khon Bi Htoo said that another issue is that teachers, who are nominated by the Ministry of Education, want to go back to their hometown leaving village schools without staff. Khon Bi Htoo said if the government wanted to address this problem it should appoint teachers for the villages’ from the local area.

The KNGY said last year, the subsidies for primary school teachers were donated, by the parents and villagers had to nominate students, who passed middle school, to help support teachers in the village.