Monastic schools in Myanmar

The schools served mostly to instill moral values, support cultural assimilation and increase literacy- all aspects of the system that provided the Burmese monarch with religious and social legitimacy.

The various dynasties that ruled lowland Burma built monasteries and provided charity to attract and support the monastic school system.

Instead, the teaching served two practical purposes; they instilled moral character into young Bamar men and 'civilised' conquered non-Bamar minorities by imbuing religious and cultural values.

The Buddhist monastic schools helped to give Myanmar a rate of literacy considerably above those of other East Asian countries in the early 1900s.

The civil insurgencies that broke out soon after independence were socially attributed, in part, to the inadequacies of secular schools in rooting out anti-social behaviours.

The monastic schools were co-opted to fill in gaps though the Basic Education Law of 1966 and remodelled to resemble the dynastic system of patronage.

The primary school children of Myanmar attend the Buddhist monasteries to acquire literacy and numeracy skills as well as knowledge of the Lord Buddha’s teachings.

Many of the orphans who attend monastery schools in Yangon and Mandalay are from remote areas and have been sent by senior monks from their villages and small towns.