Compressed academic calendar looms, daunting students and teachers alike

By DMG 26 Oct 2021

DMG Newsroom
26 October 2021, Sittwe 

Educators are expressing concern about the prospect of fitting a full year’s curriculum into about four months of schooling as Myanmar gets ready to send its students back to the classroom after a months-long hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Schools in Myanmar have been closed since July 9 due to the third wave of Covid-19.  

“We will get more time if the school term is extended to April. Only four months is not enough to teach all lessons in the curriculum,” said one high school teacher in Arakan State. 

The Arakan State Education Department has said the Ministry of Education is rewriting a curriculum that can be manageably taught in the four months remaining in the academic year. 

“The Ministry of Education is rewriting curriculum that is suitable for the remaining school term,” said Dr. Tun Tun Thein, deputy director of the Education Department (Administration). 

He added that the ministry is arranging to reopen schools next month. 

“Schools will be reopened very soon, maybe in November. Schools have already been told to clean to be ready to reopen,” he said. 

Mg Tun Myint Naing, a Grade 10 student in Pauktaw town, Arakan State, said he worried that he would be less interested in studying because schools have been suspended for a long time. 

A Covid-19 vaccination campaign targeting students over age 12 in Arakan State began last week and about 160,000 students from 13 townships in the state have been inoculated to date, according to a spokesman for the Arakan State Administration Council. The vaccination of eligible students in Arakan State is about 71% complete, the spokesperson said on Tuesday.