From: ABSDF News
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STUDENTS PROTEST IN RANGOON 6 February 2000
Students from the newly reopened Government Technical Colleges (GTC) have been staging protests in Thanlyin and Hmaw Bi (Rangoon Division) since Friday, January 28, calling for the cancellation of the newly introduced education system and for better teaching environments. The students are complaining about the rescheduling of their curriculum.
The authorities closed down the GTCs in Thanlyin and Hmaw Bi on 3 February in order to prevent larger student demonstrations, sources said.
Elsewhere, GTCs from Hin Thada and Ma U Bin Irrawaddy Division) were shut down just after they were opened in mid-December, after a student brawl which led to the discharge of 13 students from these colleges.The ABSDF strongly condemns the university closures in Burma.
These closures constitute the regime’s desperate attempts to put down student demonstrations, instead of responding to underlying problems.
Under the new education system, students are dispersed throughout 30 newly organized regional GTCs. Degrees at GTCs will now take 4 years instead of 6, resulting in a downgrade in degree status; GTC degrees will now be considered college degrees and not university degrees. According to Aung Thu Nyein, General Secretary of the ABSDF, the new system is designed to isolate students and inhibit student activism.
He explains, “the time spent in classes is reduced and students do not have opportunities to hold discussions or assemble.”
Selective universities re-opened on 16 December 1999. All universities (except limited medical classes) had been closed since December 1996, following student demonstrations. The newly opened education facilities are technical colleges. All other classes remain closed. The Yangon and Mandalay Institute of Technology (YIT & MIT) were re-named Government Technical Colleges (GTCs).
The administration of these schools has been transferred from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Science and Technology. Students are not allowed to return to the universities they previously attended, and the regime has recommended that students enroll instead in the newly organized 30 regional GTCs.
Partial re-openings and the displacement of students are merely attempts to control the student community and respond to international pressure. The recent changes in education coincided with Japan’s decision to make the reopening of all universities a condition of future economic grants.
The newly organized 30 GTCs throughout Burma are regionally based,poorly equipped and badly managed. As one Thanlyin GTC student explained, there are only a few students in such GTCs. At the Gwa GTC there are 7 students , and at the Taunggyi GTC there are 19. The student explains, “the regime wants the students dispersed. The colleges are not set up according to international standards. And at the same time, the regime has institutionalized systematic repression of students’ rights. Schools are no longer schools- they’ve become like prisons.”
source from; All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) For more info, please contact (661) 8223727