Education is an important key to offer a promising perspective to especially younger generations, and to ensure social equity. Both aspects have only played a minor role in Myanmar’s history, but with the political transition more education opportunities could be developed in the past decade. However, those opportunities are predominantly available in urban areas and create an education gap between urban and rural population. Our English language class was established in 2017 in order to bring such education opportunities to Indawgyi with the objective to open up new vistas to the local communities.
An atmosphere to flourish
Our English language class is – in strong contrast to the Myanmar education system - based on modern and interactive teaching methods to create an engaging and inspiring learning atmosphere. The locally-based, international staff of Fauna & Flora International (FFI) leads the weekly course with the support of the local ecotourism group Inn Chit Thu. FFI also provides every student with a free English workbook to assure a great leaning opportunity for every community member regardless of their individual social backgrounds.
Our weekly class at the Indawgyi Wetland Education Centre in Lone Ton has a strong emphasis on the younger generation in order to develop qualifications for their potential future occupations, and additionally engage more residents of Indawgyi in tourism. The class in Namun is built around a small Training of Trainers (TOT) programme. The regular participation of several private teachers from Namun maximises the impacts of our English language class since their students also profit from the improved skills and experienced teaching methods. Our experience of recent years shows that the students already bring a broad vocabulary and basic understanding for the grammar to our courses. Therefore we focus on the permanent exchange of our students with the international teachers to encourage the actual use of the English language, and to build the necessary confidence to eventually speak English.
We are looking forward to once more joining and supporting the language development of our more than 20 local students in the months to come and cannot wait to hand them their certification over for their successful participation in our English language class.
