Myanmar now begins the uncertain task of rebuilding the higher education system after 50 years of military rule, which ended in 2011. As the country transforms from a dictatorship to democracy, many question what is next for education.

Upon President Thein Sein’s inauguration in 2011, education spending increased from $340 million to $1 billion in 2013-14, accumulating more than 5% of the national budget. Yet, many are skeptical as to whether the new government, still housing former generals, are ready to let go and initiative real change in education.

Currently, the National League of Democracy (NLD) is working with non-governmental and academic organizations to propose a new national education policy, although the government has so far not been receptive. “We do know that the Education Ministry is one of the least reformed of all the ministries,” said Carola Weil, the dean of the School of Professional and Extended Studies at American University (AU) who recently visited Myanmar to explore potential partnerships with local universities.

The Education Ministry conducted a study of the teaching system and is expected to deliver recommendations in 2014. Pariliamentary committees, led by oppositional leader Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, are working to reform higher education law in addition to rebuilding Yangon University.

“One focus is university autonomy,” said Kevin Mackenzie, director of the British Council in Myanmar and advisor to the parliamentary committee. Last year, Parliament rejected a higher education bill which failed to provide the universities with enough independence.

Another key issue is academic freedom. Presently, students are required to select majors based on test scores. Many graduates end up in fields that neither interest them nor provide marketable opportunities. However, optimism for change is still felt as students now reformulate previously banned unions, hoping to influence laws that protect their rights.

“No one has shut us down yet,” said Ms. Suu Suu Linn, a member of a renewed student union.

Teachers are also recovering associations to campaign for educator rights. “There have been so many changes in the past two years,” said Khaing Myo Tun, the secretary of Yangon University’s teachers’ association. “But we still have to be cautious because we never know if things will change, if there could be a U-turn.”

One thing is certain, teachers and students across the nation are revitalized by a new-found hope. “We always have lived in a dark room, but now we see a little hole of light,” said Ye Thu Rein, an undergraduate at Myanmar Maritime University. “We are walking towards that light and hoping.”

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Eyewitnesses attest that armed Zambian police surrounded the university, beat and arrested students, and fired teargas canisters into dormitories. Several university buildings were set on fire.

Zambian President Michael Sata ordered the arrest and expulsion of the students involved in the protests, but later changed his position. Pressure from the international community and threats to cut off donor aid caused the president to retract the order and release the detained students. The students were required to pay an “admission of guilty” fee equivalent to $4 US. The international community reminded the president that peaceful demonstrations are protected by the Zambian constitution and international law.

Friday’s protests are the most recent in a series of university demonstrations that began months ago. At least three universities have been involved in protests against the government. The removal of the fuel and food subsidies is seen as a move that will affect the country’s poorest citizens. Sixty percent of the Zambian population lives in poverty, and frustrated protesters fear price hikes and commodity shortages due to the decision. President Sata promised to reduce poverty, lower taxes, and create jobs upon his election in 2011.

The University of Zambia student union secretary general Mwauluka Sishekano stated that protests would continue until the government issued a satisfactory response.

“This is a government that promised to protect the poor,” he said. “We are calling upon those who hold the instruments of power to listen and we will not rest until this matter is addressed.”

At the time he issued the arrest orders for the protesters  the president was laying the foundation stone at a ceremony for the construction of a new university.

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In recent weeks Sirleaf has spoken about improving the quality of primary schools- a top priority, as they form the base of the educational system. She has also noted the need for more vocational schools and career-training programs to serve older students. The president called on the nation’s teachers to speak up and communicate the issues and problems that they face. To solve these problems she urged collaboration between parents, the government, community-based and multilateral organizations, development partners, and the private sector.

In addition to material shortages and low education quality, President Sirleaf also promised to address corruption and theft committed by education sector personnel, including government officials and teachers.

At the end of the Roundtable presentations, the president asked the conference for a report that she hoped would be “realistic, focused and time-bound, identifying immediate and rational steps.”

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“The Children Take Action” gives basic facts about climate change through the story of a young boy learning about the issue from his grandfather. It is designed to accompany a new syllabus in Kiribati classrooms that focuses on elements of climate change, the environment, and sustainable development.

Kiribati, a nation of 100,000 citizens spread out across 32 atolls and one island in the South Pacific, is one of many countries in the region that will face the effects of climate change in the near future. The Pacific islands are among the most vulnerable areas of the world to global warming.

Rising temperatures and damage to coral reefs impact fish populations, threatening the food security of the region. The fishing industry accounts for 40% of Kiribati’s Gross Domestic Product. Kiribati’s leaders are also considering the scenario of evacuation in the coming decades, if the nation cannot adapt to the changing conditions. Rising sea levels are breaching outer atolls, and overpopulation is depleting fresh water reserves on the main island, Tarawa.

According to Seema Deo, spokesperson for the SPREP, the book is generating interest from other countries in the South Pacific and calls to have it translated into additional languages. In addition to learning facts about climate change, she says that one result of the program is that children learn “how their actions contribute to the betterment or otherwise of their natural environment.”

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Kumar’s students are the children of poor migrant workers, and most do not attend formal school. For some parents, the closest government school is too far away, others enrolled their children in formal school, but were dismayed by the poor quality of the education they received. A few families send their children to both government school and to Kumar, impressed by the education the children receive under the bridge. Parents view Kumar’s school as a place where their children’s teacher knows who they are, where children can ask questions and actually learn.

In recent years, educational standards in Indian schools have been declining, according to the nonprofit Pratham. India’s 2010 Right to Education Act guarantees free education to all children ages six to 14, but the 96% of Indian children that attend school often deal with overcrowding, teacher shortages, and lack of access to clean water and appropriate toilet facilities. According to Pratham’s 2012 report, almost 68% of third graders read below a first grade level.

Despite shortcomings in the system, India’s children are motivated to continue learning. For Kumar and the volunteers who teach with him, their purpose is to aid them any way they can. Kumar says his goal is to enroll the children in formal school, citing the importance of earning a degree.

According to Kumar, “To change the future of these children, education is the only weapon. If they go anywhere in the world, if they have education, they can achieve anything. And without education, they can do nothing.”

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Hamas, the Islamic group that governs the Palestianian territory in Gaza, passed a new educational law that mandates separate classes for boys and girls over the age of 9 and also excludes men from working at girls’ school.

Across 18 pages, the law indicates its purpose is to build nationalist values in students, preparing them to be “committed to the Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic culture” and encouraging them “to get to know Palestine with its historic borders, its history and its connection with its milieus.” The law will become active at the start of the next academic year in September.

“This law is a safety valve for our national principles, ” said Yousef Al-Sherafi, a Hamas lawmaker and a member of the education committee. “One male staffer among 20 female teachers in a girls’ school would not allow our sisters to feel comfortable,” he added.

Critics view the law as Hamas’ latest attempt to inculcate the people of Gaza with the Islamic lifestyle. Hamas previously tried to impose Islamic dress on school girls.

In actuality, the segregation of sexes above the age of 9 is already enforced in most government schools. Some speculate that the new ruling targets about a dozen private and Christian schools since implementing it will force these schools to generate new classrooms and teachers for each gender, possibly beyond their capacity.

While the law doesn’t prohibit the teaching of Christian-related subjects to non-Muslim students, it does warn against engaging in ties with Israel: a 10-year prison term and a fine of 20,000 Jordian dinar (about $28,200) awaits any educational institution receiving aid that promotes exchange programs or other activities involving Israelis.

Yet, since Israel’s policy already imposes strict limitations on Palestinians travelling in and out of the city, scarcely any school or association is able to initiative such activities to begin with.

Several rights groups have criticized the ruling, as it darkens the lines between culture, equality, and the law. In a press statement, the Gaza Centre for Womens’ Legal Research and Consulting asserted, “Such decisions don’t help to base Palestinian society on equality and justice, neither do they help the Palestinian cause towards national unity.”

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The Laotian duo Thoummy Silamphan, 26, who lost a limb to unexploded ordinance, and Manixia Thor, a 25-year-old leader of a female bomb clearance team, joined Washington-based nongovernmental organization Legacies of War on its “Voices of Laos” tour across a dozen cities.

Laotians have spent considerable efforts trying to help survivors of UXO explosions. The Cope Center, situated in Vientiane, supports victims and their families by equipping them with prosthetic limbs. Yet although this aid is present, the country needs support from larger nations if it is to deal with the issue in a fast, safe, and efficient manner.

Experts assume that more the 30% of the ordinance dropped on the country failed to detonate, leaving vast areas of the country treacherous to all who live or visit there. The north and the eastern Vietnamese border are the areas most affected, creating hundreds of annual injuries.

“To this day there are 600 living survivors of UXO [unexploded ordnance] explosions and many of them are children, Thoummy told RFA’s Lao Service in an interview last week. “Of the 600 survivors, less than 100 have received any aid and are in desperate need of it,” he said.

The tour around the US has been dubbed ‘ Voices of Laos,’  and began in New York on April 3 when the United Nations marked the International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.

Funded by the U.S. State Department, the trip has taken the two young Lao speakers through California, Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota, and culminates in the U.S. capital on April 30—the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

The ultimate purpose of the tour is to raise awareness about the issue, giving lectures and holding discussions about how Laotians lives have been affected. The true source of inspiration for the young travelling Laotians stems from Thoummy’s  realization that he is lucky to have been one of the very few to receive aid. His desire to attain an equal amount of attention for his country men is what has brought him overseas. “I would like Americans to be aware of the UXO problems in Laos and help us out,” he told RFA.

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Bagan, Myanmar

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These street children, known as talibés, have been sent away from their families to attend Koranic school in the capital. A religious education is highly valued in Senegalese culture, and many legitimate schools, or daaras, exist. The problem stems from unethical daaras that traffic children in from rural areas and neighboring West African countries, and put them to work begging on the streets to earn money for the marabout, the head of the school.

Reports abound of children going hungry, living in filthy conditions, and receiving no education outside of memorizing the Koran. According to reporter Jane Labous, these children lack knowledge of fundamental subjects like math, and even the teenagers “can neither speak, read, nor write French – Senegal’s official language.”

Plan International has partnered with USAID to better conditions for talibés through the Basic Education Project. Over 100 daaras have enrolled in the program, which introduces school subjects into the curriculum, provides uniforms and materials, and improves living conditions. One goal of the project is to eventually re-enroll the children in formal school and help older teenagers find a profession.

Recently the government of Senegal has also begun to take action. In March 2013, President Macky Sall declared that all daaras that do not meet safety standards would be shut down, following a tragic fire in an overcrowded daara that killed nine children. The government is also expected to announce a new program to regulate education in these religious schools.

More measures to aid talibés have been coming from UNICEF, including a program of conditional cash transfers to help impoverished families feed their children, thus helping prevent trafficking. UNICEF is also working to identify street children in urban areas and reunite them with their families.

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