(Reuters) - After violence erupted in Myanmar in the wake of the 2021 coup, most high school students in the remote township of Thantlang left their studies and took up arms to support a grassroots rebellion against the military, local school teacher Salai said.
Across Myanmar, one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries that has been ravaged by widening fighting since the coup, only about 22% of eligible students are enrolled at the high-school level, the World Bank said in a report published in July.
Overall, enrolment rates in Myanmar's education institutions have dropped by over 12% between 2017 and 2023, the World Bank said, underlining "a crisis in education access".
A junta spokesperson did not answer a phone call seeking comment.
Myanmar was plunged into chaos in February 2021 when the country's military unseated an elected government and violently cracked down on subsequent protests, leading to a widespread uprising that has killed thousands of people.
While other countries in the region have seen education enrolments bounce back after the COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of children in Myanmar have not come back to school, the World Bank said, based on a survey of nearly 8,500 households.
Teachers and students in Myanmar have been at the forefront of opposition movements against military rule for decades. Many teachers joined a civil disobedience movement since the coup, disrupting the education sector.
"Considering that the country was experiencing an upward trend in enrolment rates at all levels prior to 2017, the decline in the share of enrolled children between 2017 and 2023 points to a crisis in education access," the report said.
In some parts of Myanmar, even those students who are back in classrooms are struggling, with teachers and volunteers scrambling to keep basic schooling accessible in violence-hit areas.
"The biggest challenge for us is the shortage of qualified teachers," said Thantlang's Salai, who only asked that a part of his name be used for security reasons.
Around 1,100 volunteer teachers are helping a parallel administration educate some 17,000 students in Thantlang, some of them attending classes under plastic sheets held up by wooden frames, according to Salai, who supervises the system.
In a village in Khin U township in the central Sagaing region, former state-employed teachers and volunteers teach some 200 children in makeshift classrooms that are spread out across the settlement.
Their biggest concern is the safety of the students because of the presence of the military in the area, a 49-year-old co-founder of the school said, asking not to be named because of security concerns.
"They often use artillery fire toward the village, causing great distress and apprehension," the teacher said, referring to the military. "We have to consider potential escape routes when these troops approach."