Although government-run schools have reopened for the new academic year in Lone Khin Village in Hpakant Township, Kachin State, student attendance remains low due to ongoing instability in the region.

A resident of Lone Khin Village told MNJ that there were only a few students attending the government schools in the village and attendance numbers remained low.

Independent schools in the village, run by the community and religious organisations have yet to open due to the instability.

In Lone Khin and nearby villages artillery shelling is frequently heard and junta columns have been conducting daily military operations, including destroying heavy machinery belonging to jade mining companies.

The junta violence has made parents in Lone Khin Village and nearby villages of Lone Khin Village Tract fearful of sending their children back to school, according to a Lone Khin Village resident.

She said: “Schools have reopened, but with the current situation, parents just don’t have the courage to send their children back yet.”

A man who also lives in Lone Khin Village urged parents to carefully weigh up whether sending their children back to school during the current military tensions is safe.

In Mawsisar Village, also in Lone Khin Village Tract, government schools have re-opened but religious schools and community schools also remain closed. The presence of junta troops, who have already torched jade company backhoes, vehicles and a dormitory in the village when the companies did not pay them bribes, has made reopening the schools unsafe.

While wealthy parents can send their children to private schools, poor parents have to wait for religious schools and community schools to reopen.

A junta column of about 100 soldiers marching towards Hpakant Town entered Mawsisar Village on 30 May 2025 and has been stationed at a monastery in the village since then.