While the government is carrying out educational reform under the ‘KG + 12’ plan by gradually upgrading the curriculum that meet four guiding principles, the Mon Education Department has also been upgrading the curriculum in over 30 Mon national schools in the Mon State since the previous 2017 academic year.
Students are taught in the mother tongue in these Mon national schools and a new curriculum for mother tongue teaching is being implemented.
“We can only build our country with modern education when we teach with a curriculum that meets the standard and is based on the mother tongue,” said U Min Aung Zay, coordinator of the Mon Education Department.
The new curriculum is not being upgraded to keep abreast of the government and it is only carried out to reform the Mon education system, he continued.
The country will have peace and tranquility and become developed only when unbiased and fair curriculum that avoids subjectivity can be obtained in drafting the curriculum.
“Our country truly needs unbiased curriculum just like other countries. The government has been doing reforms. That’s why we are trying to achieve success in the education reforms just like the government,” said Dr Than Naing, a consultant in the drafting of the new curriculum.
U Aung Maung, a retired state education officer, told a workshop that the current education system has been criticized because the teachers are still teaching in the form of rote learning even though adequate teacher’s guide has been provided in some subjects in the school curriculum in Myanmar.
“When we inspected the schools, we asked around. Many schools are still practicing rote learning and the teaching of critical thinking is quite rare. You can say this is related to the curriculum,” U Aung Maung continued.
As Myanmar education system mainly relies on memorization to sit for the exam, both the teachers and parents lack interest in critical thinking and environmental surveillance.
“Just look at the upgraded curriculum for KG. No matter how much training has been given, the parents aren’t interested due to lack of explanation from the teachers, who are teaching practically. But, the parents started to trust Myanmar education after the curriculum for Grade-1 and Grade-2 have been released,” U Aung Maung said.
The Mon Education Department has been implementing the new curriculum since the previous 2017 academic year and it is currently drafting the curriculum for Grade-2.
