Section 3 | RULES OF THE GAME
based educational technology in thirty-one schools found that the participating teachers
required coaching in order to redress their habit of soliciting only male volunteers to set up
the technology (tablets, projectors, etc.) in the classroom.216
As described above (see section 3.3), the new Department of Alternative Education is
exploring how social media, smartphones, and 2G/3G feature phones can be deployed
to meet the educational needs of the 3.5 million out of school youth, including child
laborers. The DAE has expressed interest in working with INGOs and CSOs through venues
such as public libraries to provide digital and life skills training as essential components on
the path out of poverty.
There are, in fact, many plans to change the status quo. Among other things,
NESP reforms will be critical to strengthen pathways linking secondary education
to TVET and higher education and also strengthening secondary education’s role
in preparing the majority (in the near term) of youth to enter the labor market by
ensuring that information technology provides relevant and flexible knowledge and
competencies to all students, irrespective of their sex or location.217
The pace and extent of rollout of systemic reforms will have a direct bearing on the extent
and nuances of the gender digital experienced by the youth of Myanmar.
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
While few young women reach university (18 percent), those who do comprise
approximately 60 percent of all students at the tertiary level, and the share increases at
higher levels (e.g., 59 percent of undergraduate degrees, but 80 percent of master’s and
doctoral degrees). They form particularly large proportions of faculties of law, finance,
teacher education, and languages.218 Interestingly, there are differing reports as to their share
of what are, in Myanmar, traditionally male-dominated fields of study: one source presented
216
217
218
UNESCO Bangkok, “Myanmar: TVET as Key to Educational Opportunities for All Learners,” March 31, 2015.
ADB et al., Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Myanmar, 107–108.
Urbano and Dickinson, Women and the Economy in Myanmar.
Ending the Gender Digital Divide in Myanmar: A Problem-Driven Political Economy Assessment
|
64