Primary and Secondary Education in Myanmar 171
still in the process of being set up and taking on their duties. Township
Education Offices still perform many of the responsibilities that the
District Education Offices are meant to take on. As in other government
ministries, administration and implementation flow from the Ministry
down to the townships.
In terms of the legal framework for education, the current law guiding
Basic Education was enacted in 1964 and has been amended several times,
most recently in 1989. This law outlines four key objectives: promoting
“good moral character”; ensuring that students are “well-equipped with
[a] basic education”; giving “precedence to the teaching of science” and
strong vocational training programmes, and a “strong foundation” for
continuing to tertiary education.^8 The government has outlined a series
of national plans for education loosely based on the Basic Education
Law, but these plans tend towards generalities and promote widely
disparate priorities.^9
The Thirty-Year National Action Plan on Education, which the
previous government began in 2001, is still in effect. In March 2012, at
the Direct Policy Options Conference, the Minister of Education, Dr Mya
Aye reiterated that the government would continue the 2001–30 plan. The
Thirty-Year Plan ensures universal education in phases across successive
timed phases ending in 2030–31. However, the ten broad programme areas
lack work plans. For example, one programme area is the “Emergence
of an Education System for Modernization and Development”, but the
plan makes no mention of devolution, decentralization, or increasing
sub-national decision-making authority. Dr Mya Aye also stated that the
government was committed to reviewing the education sector.^10
The 2008 Constitution is another piece of legislation which states
priorities and standards in education. As contentious as the Constitution
may be to some, both the domestic and international communities have
widely accepted it as a guide for policy formulation. The Constitution
states in section 28, “the Union shall provide free, compulsory primary
education system”. It also states that citizens have the “right to education”
and “the right to conduct scientific research, work with creativity”, and
“the right to develop the arts”.
A crucial aspect of the Constitution is that it divides legislative
responsibilities into two “schedules”. Despite the fact that the new
constitution reinvigorates the state parliaments as part of a process of
decentralization, regional hluttaws have no ability to enact legislation