Monastic school in Thandwe looks for financial aid as enrolment booms

By DMG 27 May 2021

DMG Newsroom
27 May 2021, Thandwe

As the number of students has increased this academic year, Palay Yadana monastic school in Thandwe town, Arakan State, is in need of financial aid.

There were more than 1,000 students last year, but that number this year has reached 1,600, so it is necessary to arrange more classrooms and school supplies, said the principal of the monastic school.

“The classroom is enough if the number of students is normal. However, the number of students is increasing year after year as the exam pass rate is good,” Principal U Maung Aye Win said. “If we can make more classrooms, it is better for the students. We now use the dining room as a classroom.”

“I hope we can make monastic education better if people donate to build more classrooms,” he said.

Students at the monastic school are typically poor and drawn from all 17 of Arakan State’s townships, including some who cannot go to non-monastic schools due to conflict.

Ma Theingi Htet, a Grade 10 student from Sanae town in Kyaukphyu Township, said she chooses the monastic school because her family cannot afford the costs associated with non-monastic schooling.

“I have been attending the school for four years. The monastic school provides us all school supplies, food and accommodation. I thank the school,” she said.

The Palay Yadana monastic school has been open for 12 years. Its 40 teachers are a mix of volunteers and paid staff.

A teacher is paid K400,000 a month and the school has to spend about K10 million a month including other expenditures, said U Hla Maung Oo, secretary of the school committee.

“The expenditure for rice and firewood is about K600,000 a month. It does not include expenditure for fish and curry,” he said.

“The salary for teachers totals more than K5 million a month.”

The Palay Yadana monastic school has the fourth largest enrolment in Myanmar, members of the school committee said.