THE IMPACTS OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT ON SHAPING DEMOCRATIC CULTURE VIA TEACHING HUMAN RIGHTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION OF MYANMAR
Abstract
A number of reforms followed Myanmar’s political transformation in 2011, including the introduction of human rights courses in the higher education system in the 2016/17 academic year. This study argues that the legacy of prolonged military regimes and the social context limits the practical teaching of human rights in the classroom. This study evaluates how university lecturers taught human rights between 2015-2020 and how it influenced the contents of the subject and the way of delivering human rights knowledge even under the democratically elected government. The study finds that many lecturers were hesitant to engage in a deep discussion on politically and socially sensitive issues because academic freedom is still relatively fragile, even though the National Education Law 2014 and National Education Strategic Plan (2016~2021) guarantee academic freedom. Furthermore, the study-centered learning approach was challenging due to the unfamiliarity of the methods by both students and lecturers. The study suggests improving the quality of human rights teaching to support the sustainability of democratic culture in Myanmar.
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Electronic Transactions Law 2004
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Official Secrets Act 1923
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Alderson, P. 1999. “Human Rights and Democracy in Schools: Do they mean more than picking up litter and not killing whales?”. International Journal of Children’s Rights 7. 185-205.
Aung, May Thida. 2019. “Myanmar.” in The Remapping and analysis of Human Rights and Peace Education in ASEAN/ Southeast Asia. SHAPE-SEA & AUN-HRE. 141-60.
Aung, May Thida and Simonsen, Louise. 2020. “Integrating Human Rights Education in Myanmar’s Higher Education Institutions.” Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific 10. 185-00.
Aurora, Sneh. 2016. “Human Rights and Values in Education.” Education International-Background Paper, 1-23.
Aye, Thin Thin. 2015. “The Role of Civil Society in Myanmar’s Democratization.” International Conference on Burma/ Myanmar Studies, Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes, and Challenges. https://www.burmalibrary.org/docs21/Society%20and%20Culture/Thin-Thin-Aye-2015-The_Role_of_Civil_Society_in_Myanmar's_Democratization-en.pdf
Barany, Z. (2016). Armed Forces and Democratization in Myanmar: Why the US Military Should Engage the Tatmadaw. Center for Strategic & International Studies.
BBC. 2015. “Timeline: Reforms in Myanmar.” News. Last modified July 8, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16546688.
Buzzi, C. et al. 2011. “Education in Transition: A preliminary study of capacity development for civil society actors in Burma/ Myanmar.” SIDA. 37.
Cemmell, James. 2009. Academic Freedom (Burma) International Study, University and College Union. 1-20.
Das, Satya., Christoph Weritsch and Angelika Kleewein.2006. “Right to Democracy.” In Understanding Human Rights: Manual on Human Rights Education, edited by Wolfgang Benedek, 2nd Ed., 318-38. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria.
Electronic Transactions Law 2004
Fink, C. and Simpson, A. 2018. “Civil Society.” Chapter 25. Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar. 257-267.
Gollob, Rolf. Edward Huddleston, Peter Krapf, Maria-Helena Salema, Vedrana Spajic-Vrkas. 2007. “Tools on Teacher Training for Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education.” The revised version of the 2005 European Year of Citizenship through Education. Council of Europe. 1-89.
HRN. 2016. “Human Rights Education Project in Myanmar.” Human Rights Now, May 30, 2016. https://hrn.or.jp/eng/news/2016/05/30/hredu-myanmar/.
Htun, Su Yin. 2020. “The Role of Universities to Promote Human Rights Education in Myanmar.” University of Mandalay Research Journal 11. 41-52.
Ko, K N. 2018. “Democratisation in Myanmar: Glue or Gloss?. ANU Research Publications. 35-45.
Larsen, Ane Krestine. 2012. “Evaluating Human Rights Education - How do we know it is working?”, Master Thesis, European Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratization.
Lorch, Jasmine. 2007. “Myanmar’s Civil Society – a Patch for the National Education System? The Emergence of Civil Society in Areas of State Weakness”. Sudostasien aktuell: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 26 (3). 54-88.
Mai, Nan Kham and Duanghathai Buranajaroenkij. 2021. “Teaching Human Rights in Myanmar: Challenges 0faced by Primary School Teachers”, Journal of Human Rights and Peace Studies 7, Supplemental Issue, 1-29.
Official Secrets Act 1923
Osler, Audrey, and Yahya, Chalank. 2013. “Challenges and complexity in human rights education.” Education Inquiry 4:1. 189-10.
Paing, Tin Htet. 2016. “National Human Rights Education Initiative Forthcoming in Burma.” The Irrawaddy. Last modified July 23, 2016. https://www.peace-ed-campaign.org/national-human-rights-education-initiative-forthcoming-burma/.
Pillay, Navanethem. 2009. “Process of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education Rights,” In expert-seminar preparation.
Roh, Young-Ran. 2004. “Democratic Citizenship Education in the Information Age: A comparative study of South Korea and Australia.” Asia Pacific Education Review 5. No.2. 167-77.Smith, Martin. 1992. “Our heads are bloody but unbowed: suppression of educational freedoms in Burma.” Article 19. Censorship News 18. 1-22.
Stokke, K & Aung, SM. 2020. “Transition to Democracy or Hybrid Regime? The Dynamics and Outcomes of Democratization in Myanmar”. The European Journal of Development Research. Palgrave Macmillan: European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI). vol. 32 (2). 274-293.
Tibbitts, Felisa. 2002. “Understanding What We Do: Emerging Models for Human Rights Education.” International Review of Education 48. (3-4). 159-71.
UN. 2002. “Democracy, Global Issue.” https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/democracy.
UN General Assembly. 2004. Resolution, A/ RES/ 59/ 201.
Win, Chit. 2016. “Managing the next phase of Myanmar’s political transition.” East Asia Forum, Last modified February 23, 2016. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/02/23/managing-the-next-phase-of-myanmars-political-transition/.
Zaman, S M Anisuz. 2020. “The Rise of Mono-Ethnic Religious Nationalism in Myanmar and Its Impacts on the Security Situation of the South Asian Region”0, Master Thesis, Portland State University. 27-45
Zue, Zue. 2019. “Human Rights Law-Now Mandatory for Myanmar Law Int’l Relations Students.” The Irrawaddy. Last modified October 17, 2019. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/human-rights-law-now-mandatory-myanmar-law-intl-relations-students.html.
Authors
Aung, M. T. (2022). THE IMPACTS OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT ON SHAPING DEMOCRATIC CULTURE VIA TEACHING HUMAN RIGHTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION OF MYANMAR. Asia-Pacific Journal of Elections and Democracy, 2(01), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.54490/apjed.v2i01.39
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.