Statement for Effective practices for education in, and the teaching of,
minority languages
Madam Chair,
My name is Tin mar oo and I am a rohingya woman from Myanmar.
Madam Chair, Language is an essential of culture and identity for minorities in Myanmar but
languages of ethnic minorities have not been fully integrated in the formal education. Language
has been a barrier for ethnic minorities of Myanmar to access the formal education. I would
like to acknowledge that the Government of Myanmar committed to preserve the ethnic
languages of minorities.
It is important to mention that lack of security due to the civil war, lack of resources towards
the education system, poor accessibility and discrimination and racism against minorities
contribute towards the low literacy rate of ethnic minorities. Teachers are reluctant to serve in
the ethnic areas due to the lack of security. According to the Myanmar National Census 2014,
the districts which has never school attended rates of children (more than 60%) are from Shan
state, Kayin state and Mon state.
The religious institutions do provide education to children of ethnic minorities in their
languages but the quality of education is very low. It is important to provide the primary
education in the ethnic minorities languages.
On the other hand, ethnic minorities like Rohingya are facing difficulty in learning the official
Burmese Language due to the lack of Burmese teachers in their regions. Non-Burmese
speaking minorities face difficulty to access the health, social and legal services due to the
language barrier.
For these reasons, I would like to make four recommendations,
1. Myanmar government should provide adequate resources to schools in ethnic minority
areas to provide education in both, official as well as minority language.
2. Myanmar government should support religious institution in ethnic minority areas to
be able to provide quality education.
3. Myanmar government should use incentives for the ethnic and Burman teachers who
are willing to work in the hard-to-reach areas of the ethnic minorities and guarantee the
safety environment for education.
4. Most importantly, Myanmar government should put more effort to stop the civil wars
and should make sure to prevent the discrimination and racism against minorities in
the education system.