RASHID JAMALUDDIN PGD100034 PXGM6102

COURSE CODE : PXGM 6102

( EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANISATION)

Individual Assignment:

TITLE :

TEACHER EDUCATION IN MYANMAR

LECTURER NAME : DR. BAYANI URSOLINO ALMACEN

STUDENT NAME : RASHID BIN JAMALUDDIN
MATRIC NUMBER : PGD1000034
DATE :13TH NOVEMBER 2010
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TEACHERS EDUCATION SYSTEM IN MYANMAR

INTRODUCTION

During long time the traditional monastic education contributed to the

extension of education and formation of the actual Myanmar culture. After the

independence on 1948, several action for educational reform was taken based

on the new education policy, and scientific approach gradually started replacing

the traditional education.

The latest educational reform policy is reflected in the National Action Plan of

“Education for All”(EFA) published in March 2003, in line with the Dakar

Framework for Global Action. Though this Action Plan, government of Myanmar

aim to improve the accessibility and quality of education, and as one of the

important issue, focus on the improvement of teaching-learning

process, by shifting the actual memorization based Teacher Centered

Approach (TCA) to the Child Centered Approach (CCA).

As the strategy for the implementation of the Goal Area related to the

improvement of the access and quality, EFA stated the Development and

Expanding of Child-Friendly Schools”, and breakdown to the 5 major activities:

1. To construct or renovate schools,

2. To practice Child-Centered Approach,

3. To ensure and adequate supply and use of effective learning materials,

4. To improve school management,

5. To motivate and organize community participation.

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BACKGROUND OF TEACHERS EDUCATION SYSTEM IN MYANMAR

The school structure in Myanmar is 5-4-2 and the entry age for formal school

system is 5 years old. (See Figure 1) The tertiary education vary from 1 to 7

years depending on the course. As you can observe in the table 1, the primary

teacher has to take 1 year of the Educational College course after the high school,

and will be awarded with “Certificate in Education”, authorized to teach at the

primary school by status of Primary Assistant Teacher (PAT). If continue one

more year, will be awarded with Diploma in Teacher Education which

academically qualify to be secondary teacher, but required to have at least 1

year of experience of teaching at Primary school, then can be promoted to

status of Junior Assistant Teacher (JAT). Who already finished Bachelor

degree in other university courses, can enter to the Education competency

training course for 1 year, and will be qualify to be PAT, or JAT if

accomplish the field experience requirement. Out of these, there are

correspondence courses for the acting teachers who don’t have yet certification

or diploma for teaching. Primary and middle school (lower secondary) teachers

are trained in one of the 20 Education Colleges (EC), and high school (upper

secondary) teachers at one of two Institutes of Education (IOE). IOE also offer

higher degree courses such as Bachelor in Education, Master and PhD courses.

There is also a University of the Development of the National Races

(UDNR) under the Civil Service Selection and Training Board which trains local

ethnic teachers from remote and border areas.

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Table1: Teacher Certification at Educational Colleges

Diploma/Certifi Position
No Name of Training Duration Criteria for entrance
cate Awarded on job
Primary
Matriculation Pass,
Pre-service Certificate in Assistant
1 One year Not older than 25
Teacher Training Education Teacher
yrs.
(PAT)
Pre-service Completion of PTT Diploma in PAT/Juni
2 Two years Teacher or
Teacher Training (First Year)
Education Assistant
Pre-service Teacher
Bachelor Degree, Not
Teacher Education Education
3 One year older than 30 PAT/JAT
Competency Competency
yrs.
Training Certificate
Primary Assistant High School Final
4 Teacher Training One year Certificate or 9th PAT Certificate -
Correspondence Standard Pass, PAT
Course Prim ary principals
Junior Assistant (PAT certificate
Teacher Training holder), JAT and
5 One year JAT Certificate -
Correspondence Primary principals
Course (Bachelor Degree
Holder)

Source: translation of the document prepared by the Ministry of Education,

Union of Myanmar, Feb. 2005

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THE PRIMARY TEACHERS PRE-SERVICES CURRICULUM OF

EDUCATION COLLE GE

The Syllabus of the EC curriculum for the primary school teacher program

consist of 23 subjects which are: Educational Theory (4 credits), Educational

Psychology (4), Teaching Methodology of Myanmar (3), T.M. of English (3),

T.M. of Mathematics (3), T.M. of Natural Science and Social Study (3),

T.M. of Physical Education (1), TM. of Industrial Arts/Domestic Science (1),

T.M. of Agriculture (1), T.M. of Fine Arts (1), T.M. of Music (1), Block

teaching & Assignment (2), Myanmar (4), English (4), Mathematics (4),

Physics/History (4), Chemistry/Geography (4), Biology/ Economics(4),

Physical Education (1), Industrial Arts/Dom Sc. (1), Agriculture (1), Fine Arts (1),

and Music (1).

The evaluation system consist of: Tutorial (15 points/semester, total of 30

points), Assignment (15 points/semester, total of 30 points) and the Semester

end Test (40 points/semester, will be calculated the average of 2 semester

with maximum of 40 points) summering total of 100 points. In order to

obtain necessary credit, should complete minimum of 90% of the attendance.

Usually each subject are provided

by 2 to 3 periods/week of 45 minute lesson, in total of approx. 80 periods/year.

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SOME ISSUES ON QUALITY OF TEACHING AT EDUCATION COLLE GE

Ministry of Education/UNESCO working paper series “Higher

Education”(1991) states some issues on quality of teaching in Myanmar higher

education as: (1) Lecture-type teaching mode is not supplemented by proper

tutorial sessions, (2) Students are not encourage to use library facilities, (3)

Students need to be convinced that studying reference books is necessary. (4)

Teaching method is teacher-centered, (5) There is little or no allowance for

students to take part on active classroom participation. Tanaka (2004) pointed in

his Complementary Study Report of the Basic Education Sector Study

(MBESS), some weakness of actual EC curriculum in the context of the CCA

support, such as; the lack of the behaviorism and cognitive science research

information in the EC textbooks as well as lack of information on formative

evaluation, needs of adding more information on educational philosophy,

curriculum theories, educational approach to support the idea of Child Centered

Approach. Also is pointed out the lack of logical and systematic structuring of the

Teaching Methodology subjects.

Based on the recent field activities in Myanmar during Feb to March 2005,

Ito pointed in his activity report (Ito, 2005) that the actual problem of the

EC curriculum can summarize in 3 aspects:

(1) The relevance of the content itself,

(2) Means of delivery of the instruction, and

(3) Consistency and coherence of the content and structure of the subjects.

For other side regarding the quality of the EC teachers, are pointed the
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weakness on the basic understanding of the EC teachers on the subject in-

charge, knowledge and skill of Learner Centered Approach for the teaching-

learning process, and knowledge and skill of instructional methodology, such

as designing of the teaching-learning process, formative assessment,

selection and utilization of the appropriate methodology and available teaching

aids.

By the other hand, there are several limitation and external condition that restrict

the improvement of the actual situation, such as: (1) there are very limited

library resources to support the study of the teachers and students on the

subjects, (2) Most of the classroom are small and usually there are 70 to 80

students per classroom, (3) EC teachers have overloaded assignment

such as attending around 2000 correspondence student of in-service

program every year, out of the 70-80 students/class of pre-service program,

(4) EC teachers themselves was received teacher-centered memorizing

education, and they didn’t have previous opportunity to be trained on LCA

skills for EC education, (5) There are several procedures that takes long time

for the approval of the revision of the curriculum, among others.

Considering the reality and limiting conditions, our question is; what can

be done under the actual situation and available opportunity of the

intervention, in order to design an effective and efficient strategy for the

improvement on quality of the EC education in line with LCA?

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PROPOSING STRATEGY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT

Considering the problem and limitation identified in the previous section and

incorporating the needs, requests and commitment of the EC Curriculum

Working Group (WG) members, following four approaches are proposed to

be taken: (1) Courseware design improvement, (2) Textbook improvement, (3)

Capacity building on ID skill, and (4) Promotion of the LCA concepts for the ECs.

Brief explanation of the approaches:

(1) Courseware design improvement: In fact, entire courseware design

revision is necessary, by systematic analysis of the objectives,

consistency and coherence between each contents, relevance of the

topics, among others. During the project duration, some session with

the attendance of Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Japan are

planned, but will be limited to present just a recommendation of

improvement of the courseware design, because the actual revision will

require more time for the validation –revision process and official

approval procedures.

(2) Textbook improvement: There is a need to improve the content to be

supportive of CCA concept. For the other hand, actual textbook shows

mainly definition of the concepts, should be utilized more effective format

to help understanding of the students such as incorporate practical

examples and application exercises. Because of the limitation of time,

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expertise intervention and other resources, during the project will be

limited to following two points: Create one new CCA supportive chapter to

each of the 4 target textbooks (Ed. Theory, Ed. Psychology, Teaching

Methodology of Natural Science/Basic Science and T. M. of Social

Study/General Study), and second is the selection of a model chapter to

work on the improvement of the Instructional Design (ID).

(3) Capacity building on ID skill: By the combination of the several

workshops and On the Job Training (OJT) on the development of

the above mentioned activities, gradually develop the capacity on ID

skill of the EC Curriculum WG members as trainers, and though them will

be train the EC teachers.

(4) Promotion of the LCA concepts and skill: Because, the

understanding of the new concept and process for the change of

attitude and behavior usually take time, we should start the promotion

activities gradually. The first stage are planned to do through the LCA

promotion caravan, visiting every year 8 EC’s participated in previous

CCA workshop done by other component of the project.

Applying the prototype of the Train the Trainer (T3)

In order to conduct an effective and sustainable activities to enhance the

extension of LCA in Myanmar ECs, a prototype of Train the Trainer called

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“Composite Model of T3”, based on similar experiences of Japan International

Cooperation Agency (JICA) project in Dominican Republic during year 2004 are

planned to apply. Some characteristics of this prototype are:

(1) Combine training of trainer with development of the training package to be

utilized in regular task. This is very convenient as cost performance,

because save separate investment and manpower for the development of

the new training package, and also increase the motivation and

commitment of the trainers.

(2) Develop gradually the skill of trainers on ID such as course

design, material preparation, implementation of the training course,

evaluation and revision. This will facilitate the better understand of the

structure and entire process of the instructional system.

(3) Because the T3 will use as exercise the actual and real case of training,

applicability and retention of the obtained knowledge and skill is very high.

In the Figure2, shows the basic flow of this model in 3 stages. Here,

already filled in the topic to be utilized on this case. Upper box includes

training and a exercise using the developed training kit, and lower box are the

product applied after the training by the trainee.

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Figure 3 shows more detail of the process. In this flow-chart, Stage 1 and 3 will

be leaded by instructor as training and model, 2 and 4 will be the On-the-Job

application, and 5 will be starting of the new routine of course development

leaded by the trainee.

Some important points of each stage are:

Stage 1: This is the first step of the training. In this step, the instructor will

develop the basic ID skill of the trainers. Should apply the level 1 assessment

(reaction), level 2 (learning) by pre and post-test.

The design of the training kit will be done using Training Forms developed

originally by Ito & Suzuki (2001) for the third country training program in

Turkey and improved later by other countries training program.

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Stage 2: This is the first On-the-Job application stage of the learning. This

should be implemented by the trainer, trained in the Stage 1. If available the

chance, instructor can monitor the implementation and give suggestion for the

evaluation and improvement. In this stage, will be applied the Level 3

(behavior) assessment.

Stage 3: This is the second ID training of the Trainers. The difference than

the first ID training is the addition of the 3-2, information gathering on the

new content. While during the first ID training, the subject and content of the

exercise used the already existing content, in this stage, instructor will provide

the subject, and some information, but the some first hand information should be

collected, analyzed and organized as new content.

Stage 4: Implementation of the course developed in the Stage 3 will be applied

by the trainers should follow the same process of Stage 2, including the level 3

assessment.

Stage 5: While Stage 2 and 4 was just the implementation exercise, this step we

can said that is a practical test to prove if really Trainers learn necessary

knowledge, skill and experiences to be able to develop by himself a training

program.

Stage 6: Again, this is the Stage for the application of the developed course as a

routine activity.
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CONCLUSION

This essay is about teachers education system in Myanmar and it is also

consider the issue and strategy for the effective implementation of a real

case of on going project for the institutional building and capacity

development. Still there are many details to be considered and improve by

doing, but the application of the Prototype “Composite model of the T3

training” will validate the applicability and effectiveness of the a practical

training system that can be applied to many other similar teacher educational

projects.
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REFERENCES

1. Ito, T.; Aksakal, M.; Yilmaz, M.; Suzuki, K. (2001), Design and
Implementation of the Educational Information System for the International
Training Program: Development of the Curriculum for “Audiovisual
Communication in Family Health”in Republic of Turkey, ICCE 2001 Korea.
JP010

2. Ministry of Education (2003), Education of All National Action Plan,

Ministry of Education, Union of Myanmar

3. U Myint Han (1992), Ministry of Education /UNDP/UNESCO Education

Sector Study Project Working Paper Series: Curriculum, Myanmar Education
Research Bureau

4. U Myo Nyunt (1992), Ministry of Education/ UNDP/ UNESCO Education

Sector Study Project Working Paper Series: Higher Education, Myanmar
Education Research Bureau

5. Ministry of Education (2000), Brief Description of Educational Reforms,

Union of Myanmar

6. JICA (2001), Myanmar Bas ic Education Sector Study (MBESS):

Preliminary Study Report, (Japanese)

7. IDCJ (2001), Myanmar Bas ic Education Sector Study (MBESS): Project

Proposal, (Japanese)

8. IDCJ (2002), Myanmar Bas ic Education Sector Study (MBESS): F inal

Report, (Japanese)

9. BERDC (2002), Improving Lesson for Active Learning in Education

Colleges –Some ideas on Learner-Centered Approach (LCA)-