As Myanmar reopens, so does its universities

[Jonathan Fairfield]

As Myanmar reopens, so does its universities

Closed following student unrest in 1988, Yangon University is accepting undergraduates again in a sign of change.

Yangon, Myanmar - Once a hotbed of political subversion, the old foundations of the Rangoon Student Union now sustain a grove of trees that sway sleepily in regimental rows. A student sits on a wall nearby, leafing through a text book.

The old building was blown up in 1962 by the first of Burma's secretive military juntas that steered the country through decades of misrule and eviscerated its once-prestigious higher education system.

Half a century and a name-change later, the leafy avenues of Yangon University are crawling with the first crop of undergraduates to study a curriculum free from the interfering hand of the military.

Until recently the word "poverty" was banned, alongside any discussion of domestic politics at the University.

After an outburst of student-led protests in 1988, the political science department was shuttered. Further protests ten years later led to the shut-down of all undergraduate teaching, but things are now changing.

"We have full autonomy," says a beaming Kyaw Naing, a rector at the school, two weeks after the university re-opened its gates to undergraduates in December.

A government largely composed of retired generals took power in 2011 and, to the surprise of many outsiders, began a radical political and economic reform programme they called a transition to "disciplined democracy".

They ended pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and began releasing hundreds of political prisoners.

As a result, the West suspended or lifted most of their trade and economic sanctions, heralding a cascade of frontier investors sniffing fresh opportunities.

US President Barack Obama made an historic speech at the university in November 2012, hailing the country's "remarkable journey".

Observers say the government's objective was to yank the South East Asian country out of isolation, away from an increasingly overbearing Chinese influence and into the 21st century.

Source: Al Jazeera - Read the full story here