IKAP Burma Network's Eastern Burma Community Schooling project held a meeting of ethnic leaders to discuss ways in which different ethnic community based organizations could cooperate together to improve access, availability and quality of education provided to children in their remote communities. In the meeting, leaders described the current situation of their commmunities and more specifically the status of schooling and other places of learning available to their children. A number o fchallenges including war, security, poverty, lack of qualitified teachers, community participation and others were seen as barriers to children's learning and community development.

All participants expressed the desire to learn from each other and where possible cooperate and collaborate in the future.

Participants Walking To Class

The Eastern Burma Community Schooling Project has been organized by IKAP's RS and Burma network, primarily the Karen Teacher Working and World Education, an American NGO. Participants have come from across Mon, Karen, Karenni and Shan States Burma.  They were selected by the different ethnic community based organizations participating in this project.  During the initial ToT workshop after the Water Festival, 75 participants representing 13 ethnic groups from migrant, refugee and IDP regions joined together for an intensive 4 week course.

Participants of different Indigenous Groups (Please note photos are non descript to protect the identities of the students).

Participants from Eastern Burma, to date,  represent Shan, Lahu, Ta’ang, Pa-oh, Kayan, Kayah, Kayaw, Karenni, Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen, Mon and Arakhan ethnic nationalities.  There are 17 women and 8 men.  They are aged between as young as 17 up to 30 years old.  The majority of them have had teaching experience in the past.

Following the ToT, Eastern Burma participants and 21 migrant teachers moved from Hsa Thoolei school to Mae Pa to join the Community Teacher Training Course, a.k.a. Phase 2, a.k.a. Teacher Preparation Course.  To date, participants have been studying about educational theory such as child psychology, lesson planning, classroom management, and more.  There are 3 core teachers who live at the school.  Saw XXXXXXX, WE staff, has acted as the headmaster until a full time person has been identified.  He works closely with staff and the advisory team to ensure the curriculum meets the needs of the program.  There is also a resource  team made up  primarily of WE trainers who are ever present in the classroom giving instruction and/or mentoring the core teachers.  As the school year progresses, we will focus increasingly on practical knowledge and skills related to providing teacher training to communities in Eastern Burma.

Opening Ceremony

From September 12th through to September 23rd, participants joined a two week training focusing on mother tongue education. This training was facilitated by Khun Anong and Khun Sunchin and supported by Pestalozzi Children's Fund. It is an essential training for future teachers and teacher trainers in remote community schools throughout Eastern Burma where Inidgenous languages are banned from schools. Most often, Inidgenous language instruction occurs after school hours or during the summer vacation period. However, in remote areas where schools and/or traditional learning centres exist outside of government control, local teachers are able to use local languages as a language of instruction and in some cases actually teach local language literacy.

The 9 month teacher training course ends in February 2012, although, it is anticipated that a new course will begin in June 2012.

This week second year students who are one month from graduation did an intensive week of training in Indigenous participatory action research theory and methods. These new teachers, once they return to their communities, will be expected not only to teach in schools but also play vital roles in community leadership. Indigenous participatory action reaserch is a process embedded in community knowledge and values which seeks to maximize villagers involvement with an explicit call to action to solve problems within the community.

Saw XXXX said, "Before, the word 'research' seemed above me, something I could never catch. But now I understand that we can all do research for the benefit of our people."

KTTC is organized by the Karen Teacher Working Group (http://ktwg.org) which is itself an IKAP member. KTWG is a local Karen education organisation providing teacher training and educaion assistance throughout Karen State, Burma. KTWG places special focuses on developing teacher's interest and capacity to intergrate Indigenous knowledge and local resources into the classroom practices.