Interestingly, in parallel to this tightening legislative framework, the SAC has recently been communicating heartily regarding the teaching of ethnic minority languages in universities and in basic education schools, as well as the hiring and training of the Teaching Assistants (TA) and Language Teachers (LT) in charge of these subjects. In March 2021, the SAC chairman “instructed to appoint more TA/LT and provide decent salaries,” reiterating these instructions in September 2022. Ministry of Ethnic Affairs (MoEA) officials frequently include in their speeches the ubiquitous saying of warning against the “disappearance” of ethnic groups as a consequence of failing to protect their languages (စာပျောက်ရင် လူမျိုးပျောက်မယ် and variations around that formula). During the late months of 2022, short trainings for the improvements of these ethnic language teachers’ skills were organized in several States and Regions (including Karen, Kachin, Mon, Tanintharyi, Ayeyarwady, Magway and Yangon) with ceremonies held in the local Education Colleges and widely reported in military-controlled media.

These were followed in late 2022 and early 2023 by public donations from the MoEA to some of the Literature and Culture Committees (LCCs, some of which may have been compelled to reluctantly participate), including in Mon State (see also here) and Bago Region, as well as other education ceremonies involving some of the LLCs and the regional authorities. Incidentally, perplexing articles (original here) have seemingly advocated for MTB-MLE and could be spotted in the state media for 2023 International Mother Language Day, underlining the contradictions between the SAC’s desire to project an image of inclusivity and actual legislative reforms under its rule.

In 2017 and the following years until the Covid pandemic and the coup, the civilian government began a process of hiring more than 11,000 ethnic languages TAs and creating the opportunity for the matriculation exam holders among them to pursue their training in Education Colleges and to ultimately become full-fledged teachers. In each State and Region, the LCCs attached to each ethnic group were playing a central role in this process by designing the curricula, selecting the teachers, and training them. Although from many stakeholders’ standpoint the overall language-in-education policy was not going far enough, these developments were nonetheless generally perceived (see also here) as a noteworthy step forward, linking ethnic languages to job opportunities and increasing the proportion of teachers able to use and teach ethnic minority languages in government schools, with potentially genuine long-term educational and political benefits for the country. Critically, although the process was still young, some of the EAO’s education departments were involved in the development of their respective State local curricula.

In the post-coup context, however, the SAC’s interest for ethnic languages teachers and willingness to appoint TAs belies other motives. In 2021, after an increase of their salaries, some of the TAs who did not choose to join CDM were promoted in order to “fill the gaps” and replace the missing workforce among primary school teachers. Late 2022 speeches in the Education Colleges suggest that the TAs could be perceived as a reserve of a (rather docile) workforce, constituted of individuals in often precarious positions who would be grateful for a substantial promotion. Wearing colorful ethnic costumes during the ceremonies as reported in the state media, these TAs not only contribute to illustrating the idea of an ethnically inclusive education system but may also be seen as a credible vehicle to convey the military’s national narrative into schooling.

The reports of the trainings given to the TAs in Education Colleges seem to emphasize their role as a kind of civics (စာရိတ္တနှင့်ပြည်သူ့နီတိ) teacher in charge of upholding “Union spirit” (ပြည်ထောင်စုစိတ်ဓာတ်), “patriotism” (မျိုးချစ်စိတ်ဓာတ်), and the “unity of the national races” (တိုင်းရင်းသားစည်းလုံး ညီညွတ်ရေး), all of which have been core concepts of the central state, and particularly of the various military governments, for many decades. Some of these speeches even exhort the TAs to contribute to “အမျိုးစောင့်” (protecting/defending the race/religion), a concept commonly used by Buddhist and nationalist hardliners (probably understood as inclusive of all the “national races” in this case).

Despite this communication and reiterated objectives in the state media, in practice the teaching of ethnic minority languages seems at best very unsystematic in the schools controlled by the military regime that have reopened. While the teaching of some ethnic languages in the schools under the SAC MoE has recently been the topic of bilateral negotiations in order to be more systematic (and possibly going beyond the primary level in some regions), elsewhere the interruption of education due to the pandemic and CDM in reaction to the coup, as well as delayed salaries for the TAs, have often led to the disappearance of local languages classes.