What it will be if there are more Scholarships
Written by - Ms.Thin Thin Soe, Middle School Teacher, Myoma Middle School, Kyauktan Township, Yangon Region, Myanmar.

The Kyauktan Myoma Middle School is in the downtown of Kyauktan Town itself and is a three story building. There are 19 teachers including the Principal of the school and a total of 567 students are enrolled in this 2013/2014 academic year. The students are from various strata of the community. The majority of students are from poor families and of low waged or low salary government employees. Although the Government has scholarship schemes for students in the Townships, only 2 students are awarded Government scholarships last year for Grade 10 and this year from Grade 6 of which both are from our Myoma Middle School. The poor uneducated parents do not mind the education of their children but let them dropout of schools involuntary, to work as low waged odd jobs to augment their family income just to survive, where some of these poor children fall prey to human traffickers.
 
The Myanmar Basic Education School system consists of five years of Primary school (Grades1 to 5), four years of Lower Secondary (middle) school (Grades 6 to 9) and two years of Upper Secondary (high) school education (Grades 10 and 11), totaling 11 years. In this context, Lower Secondary or Middle school is viewed as the stepping stones or a firm foundation for the further pursuance of Upper Secondary school and the University Education. In Myanmar we believe that the major stakeholders in education are parents, teachers and students and that the success or failure of the education process depends very much upon the interaction of parents, teachers and the students.
 
I would like to add one stake holder and that will be the one who contributes or help the poor students not to drop out of school and to pursue education to uplift their careers. In Buddhist teachings, anyone who donates/contributes/help and provides education (Pyinnyar Dana) for the poor students to pursue education will earn Kuthow (merits) and will be well off in our next life. In this context, scholarship schemes of the Donors are needed to help the poor students who are having difficulty to pursue Lower Secondary education which will certainly turn the course of their destiny.
 
After the student has graduated from Lower secondary education, he or she and his family would like to pursue Upper Secondary education and also to pursue the University education after they had graduated from Upper Secondary education.
This would be possible if there will be more scholarship schemes from the Government and from the Donors from within Myanmar and from foreign countries. According to my experience with one Korean INGO that is providing scholarships in Kyauktan Township since 20 years ago, only very few scholarship students became repeaters or dropouts. The non scholarship students also admire the scholarship students and they themselves study hard and there appear some kind of a competition among the scholarship and non scholarship students. This kind of completion among the students will certainly foster more and more bright and able students in our Kyauktan Township and in Myanmar.
 
I am hoping and have a dream that there will be many donors from within Myanmar or from many foreign countries outside of Myanmar, who are willing to contribute/donate their money for the betterment and to uplift the career of the poor students and their families of Kyauktan Township.