Burma’s Education Crisis: Funding Gaps, School Access, Airstrikes, and Displacement

Antonio Graceffo, PhD Burma’s education system has faced decades of underinvestment, political interference and outdated teaching methods. Long before the 2021 military coup, the system emphasized rote memorization over critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving. Since the coup, armed conflict, economic collapse and widespread displacement have further weakened access to quality education, particularly in conflict-affected ethnic areas. In eastern Shan State, teachers and students describe a learning environment built almost entirely on memorization. Classrooms rely on blackboards, chalk and government-issued textbooks, and teachers have little freedom to adapt lessons or introduce outside material even when directly relevant to the curriculum. A Shan school teacher, 38, whose identity is withheld for security reasons, has taught Grade 8 Burmese language for more than ten years. Her official monthly salary is approximately 350,000 kyat, about 3,000 Thai baht at the time of the interview, insufficient for a family in a border community where Thai currency is used for daily transactions. “My husband is a farmer, and although our small rice field provides enough food for the family, our household still depends on additional income,” she said. “I teach private tuition after school because my government salary alone is not enough to support my family.” She charges approximately 300 baht per student each month and said she would prefer not to teach the extra hours but has no alternative. “Almost every teacher offers private tuition,” she said. “Many teachers focus more on tutoring after school because it provides additional income that their salaries cannot.” The reliance on tuition places a financial burden on families in rural and conflict-affected communities. Sai Nong, a Grade 7 Shan student, said his family’s poverty leaves him no choice but to attend. “I don’t want to attend private tuition because my family is poor,” he said. “But I have no choice. Without attending tuition, I have very little chance of passing the examinations.”Ying Hseng Kham, 16, a Grade 10 student near the Thai-Burma border, said tuition has effectively replaced classroom instruction as the primary source of learning. “School contributes only about thirty percent of our learning,” she said. “Tuition is much more important. If you miss school, it is usually manageable. If you miss tuition, your chances of failing the examination become much higher.” Regular class time, she said, is largely spent identifyingwhich textbook passages are likely to appear on exams, while private tuition sessions, costing around 500 baht per month at the high school level, provide more detailed explanation and memorization technique. Her daily routine consists of “school during the day, tuition in the evening, wake up early to study, complete homework, and repeatedly read our textbooks aloud so we can memorize everything for the examinations.” The exam-driven system these students describe correlates with a steep national decline in exam participation. More than 900,000 students sat Burma’s matriculation exam in 2020; by 2025 only about 200,000 did, according to ISP-Myanmar. Basic education enrollment fell from more than 9.7 million students in the 2019–20 academic year to 6.1 million in 2025–26, well short of the roughly 10 million students annual enrollment should reach based on population growth since 2018–19, a target missed for five consecutive years. Roughly 7 million school-age children in 2025–26 are missing basic education, about 53 percent of the estimated 13 million school-age population, based on the 2019 interim census and UNFPA figures. National literacy figures remain dated and inconsistent. Burma’s 2014 census, the country’s last full national census, put adult literacy at 89.5 percent, with males at 92.6 percent and females at 86.9 percent. A separate series from the World Bank and UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows a lower adult literacy rate of 75.551 percent for 2016, with males at 80.012 percent and females at 71.847 percent. No more recent national literacy survey exists, so the effect of post-2021 conflict and displacement on literacy has not yet been captured in a single dataset. UNICEF’s 2026 appeal estimates 16.2 million people, including 4.9 million children, will require humanitarian assistance, with 3.4 million children in urgent need of learning support. The appeal cites 667,000 children reached with formal or non-formal education, including early learning. Over 3.5 million people were internally displaced as of mid-2025, nearly 30 percent of them children, and 55 percent of Burma’s children live in poverty. Government forces frequently strike schools and other civilian targets. In 2023 and 2024, 217 attacks on schools and 141 instances of military use of schools were verified. Between February 2021 and January 2025, more than 125,000 teachers lost their positions, at least 37 were killed, and around 500 were arrested, of whom 396 remain in detention, according to the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. In 2024, more than 750 children were killed or maimed in conflict, including at least 250 by landmines and explosive remnants of war. In the first half of 2025, 357 casualties from landmines and explosive ordnance were recorded nationwide, including 96 children. The March 2025 earthquake compounded the crisis, adding to the number of displaced people and those in need of assistance, and damaging or destroying more than 2,600 schools, per AHA Centre data cited in a World Bank damage assessment. Burma’s original 2025 UN Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, covering the country’s standing conflict-driven needs, was funded at only 17 percent of its $1.1 billion target. A separate $275 million Earthquake Flash Addendum, launched after the quake, drew stronger donor response, so combined funding across both appeals reached 26 percent by December, down from 39 percent in 2024. Within the original plan, the education sector received only 6.5 percent of its required 2025 funding. The UNDP reports that nearly one in five young people, around 3 million, are not in employment, education, or training. The rate reaches 25 percent among women and rises to 42 percent in Kayah State and 32 percent in Rakhine State. These numbers, however, must be treated with caution because data collection is heavily skewed toward government-controlled areas. In resistance-controlled areas, very few people have jobs, and many teenagers are out of school. Apart from serving in a resistance army or volunteering with ethnic aid organizations, most young people have little or nothing to do. Repeated displacement also forces families and even entire camps to relocate frequently, creating further interruptions in children’s education. Furthermore, there are very few universities in resistance-controlled areas, meaning that even teenagers who manage to complete high school are unlikely to pursu