Protecting the Right to Education in Myanmar
Aung Naing Tun is a protection professional and individual freelance consultant from Myanmar with extensive skills and expertise on protection programming and in the humanitarian context of Myanmar. He graduated with MA in Human Rights Practice from the University of Arizona in December 2025. This article is based on his Capstone project in the Human Rights Practice Program.
Urgent Policy Interventions Required to Prevent a Lost Generation without Education in Rakhine
by Aung Naing Tun
As you might be aware, Myanmar is a country facing many complex issues, armed conflict, humanitarian crises, and military coup since February 2021. Shortly after the military dictatorship, the armed resistance movements against the military emerged across Myanmar. Rakhine is one of the poorest and most isolated states, suffering from decades of persistent underdevelopment, political exclusion, communal tensions and armed conflicts. Initiatives to take over Rakhine cities have already been started by the Arakan Army (AA) since 2019. When it comes to the present day, AA already controls 14 out of 17 cities throughout the Rakhine State.
Despite AA’s victory in the bilateral fighting with the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF), a number of issues, such as humanitarian needs, systemic cuts of trade and services by MAF, and barriers to access to services, have risen within the state. In this regard, access to education for children is one of the major challenges.
Once we talk about the impact of conflict in Myanmar, education is often treated as a less prioritized issue, with many people giving reasons about why it can be fixed once the armed hostiles stop. But children in Rakhine State, Myanmar, particularly those residing in armed party-controlled areas, suffered from systematic blocks by the military junta, which have proved to require immediate interventions for education access. Thus, today’s younger generation from these AA-controlled areas will grow up without a lack of education.
At present, thousands of children in those areas have no choice but to live in very unsafe cities with fear of airstrikes that tend to cause loss of life among civilians. Needless to say, there is systematic, safe and quality education available to them. Schools have been bombed; children have lost lives while attending schools regardless of it being day or night. Teachers are not paid anymore, so who will work unpaid jobs in the difficult situation facing everyone in those affected locations? There is no more electricity and humanitarian access has been blocked or restricted by the military government. These challenges have created serious barriers to accessing education and complete denial of learning opportunities for many children.
In terms of education, Rakhine has long been one of the poorest states with the lowest literacy rates in Myanmar. Needless to say, already-deteriorated education access has been exacerbated by these humanitarian and armed conflicts. Prolonged armed conflict and underdevelopment, displacement, and political exclusion have deepened its poverty and struggles. In times of intensified fighting and authority being taken over by the ethnic armed party, the education system has collapsed in many areas. The opportunity to learn online is not accessible to students from Rakhine State as well.
Consequently, the population in Rakhine State has started to run community-based education initiatives for their children. These efforts are unsystematic but truly necessary, since education is a protective factor for children in various ways. There are, however, a lot of challenges: lack of formal recognition or accreditation, insufficient numbers of teachers, financial matters and learning infrastructures or materials. Both parents and students have concerns with respect to the credibility of education, further university education, and job opportunities.
Why is education essential for children even in a very challenging conflict setting? It is simply because school is a place where children get first-hand education, advance their intellectual, social and cognitive development, and most importantly, receive psychosocial support and a sense of normalcy. This helps to prevent them from being exposed to negative coping mechanisms and other human rights complications like being subjected to child labour, child marriage, and even becoming child soldiers. When educational access declines, the likelihood of those risks is very high.
The right to education is clearly entitled to children as per international and national laws, including in periods of conflict. Grave violations against children must be prevented but, unfortunately, Myanmar is now one of the countries most affected by attacks on education, where schoolchildren are harmed and schools were destroyed.
So it is really imperative for us to ask ourselves, “What can be done?” With this regard, in my Human Rights Practice capstone project, I explored five feasible policy options which can be practically implemented. They are:
Promoting humanitarian support to community-driven education initiatives;
Advocating for the creation of neutral safe school zones that are free from airstrikes, as well as attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure;
Creating flexible, context-sensitive and adaptive funding strategies among donor organizations;
Constituting coordination mechanisms between the National Unity Government (NUG), EAO, and ethnic-led education institutions; and
Implementing a psychological and trauma-informed education practice approach.
Based on the analysis, I then recommend several points that require urgent interventions and implementation for specific educational actors and different stakeholders, including local authorities, to enhance educational access for children in AA-occupied cities.
All in all, protecting and promoting education for children is not only a legal obligation but also a moral one for all concerned duty bearers. If this particular trend of lack of education among children affected by armed conflict in Rakhine continues, a young generation will grow up without education, and that will cost us further decades of suffering.