Monastic education
Websites/Multiple Documents
Description:
"Vision: Monastic Education nurturing healthy, creative and responsible citizens.
Mission: The MEDG mission is to develop quality Basic Education through: Taking an active and leading role in the development of National level quality systems and the promotion of basic minimum standards for all Monastic Schools in Myanmar; Networking with Government, local and International NGOs and donors to coordinate and mobilize support for the development of Monastic Schools; Supporting the development of professional standards and training in order to promote teacher?s capacity to provide creative and child centered education; Leading development of sustainable and systematic reform of Monastic Schools Prioritizing the role of schools in promoting responsible citizenship.
Values:
Transparency - We value transparency to stakeholders in Monastic education
Child?s Rights - We value Child Rights on health and Education for all
Mutual Respect amongst partners - We value mutual respect to coordinate and work with partner organizations
Accountability – We are accountable to donor organizations and individuals
Participation - We participate actively in the change process for a National Education system
Mutual respect among Principals, teachers, parents and children - We value mutual respect in relationships with Principals, teachers, parents and children."
Source/publisher:
Monastic Education Development Group
Date of entry/update:
2014-09-27
Grouping:
Websites/Multiple Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
Shan State Buddhist University (SSBU) founded in 2014 by Ven. Prof. Dr. K. Dhammasami (DPhil. Oxford) is the first Buddhist university established in Shan State, Myanmar. It is located around serene hills which only takes about ten minutes by car from downtown of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State. SSBU at present offers MA degree programmes and PhD degree programmes. In our unique degree programmes, students can tap into our rich tradition of excellence in textual, philological, philosophical, psychological and doctrinal study and gain perspective on ways in which Buddhism informs and is informed by the contemporary world. SSBU’s MA programme offers a wide range of courses, including Pali, Tipitaka studies, Meditation, Buddhist Philosophy and Buddhism in Myanmar. The tutors of the students who will also be the MA lecturers of SSBU include Ven. Prof. Dr. K. Dhammasami (Oxford Sayadaw) hammacariya, MA and MPhil. Kelaniya, DPhil. Oxford); Ven. Dr. Senghurng Narinda (MA Kelaniya, PhD Peradeniya); Prof. Peter Koret (PhD SOAS University of London), a specialist on Lao literature and culture; Dr. Susan Conway (BA West Surrey College, MA Goldsmith’s College, PhD Brighton), a Research Associate at SOAS and a specialist on Shan culture; Dr. Aleix Ruiz Falqués (BA Barcelona, MA Pune University, PhD Cambridge), a Pali scholar; Dr. Pyi Phyo Kyaw (BA Oxford, MA SOAS, PhD King’s College, London), a Postdoctoral Fellow of Buddhist Studies at King’s College; Dr. Anuja Ajotikar (MPhil. Pune University, PhD ITT Bombay), a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sanskrit Library; and Dr. David Wharton (PhD University of Passau), a specialist on the language, orthography and Buddhist manuscript culture of the Tai Nuea ethnic group. More scholar-tutors will join.Moreover, since 2015, SSBU has been training the teachers of our MA programme. The academic training workshops for our teachers have covered a wide range of areas, including how to teach at a postgraduate level and how to be research-active scholars, all of which are important aspects of good academic practice. We strongly believe that academic excellence comes from continuous academic training and development. Therefore, SSBU provides in-house academic training for our teaching staff to ensure our teachers are of the highest standard. As part of our commitment to academic excellence, library is an important component of SSBU, supporting the university’s teaching, learning and research activities. SSBU library currently houses over ten thousands of academic books collected from Europe, America and Asia, covering diverse areas of study. In the future, we hope to make SSBU library an outstanding Buddhist library containing books and resources in many different languages.
SSBU
Source/publisher:
SSBU website
Date of publication:
00-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-11
Grouping:
Websites/Multiple Documents
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Individual Documents
Description:
Abstract:
"This study seeks to understand the dynamics and processes of community
development programs for children in Burma (Myanmar). It examines the ethical
dimensions of children?s participation, critiques the extent of participation of young
people in community development activity, explores the barriers and avenues for
increased participation and presents recommendations based on lived experience
which can be used to formulate policies that will enable/encourage greater
participation.
The development industry reaches to almost all areas of the globe and is not
confined by national boundaries, ethnicity, age, gender or other social stratification.
One of the most topical issues in contemporary development regards the rights of
the child. It is an area of increasing interest to United Nations agencies and to
human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the International Labour
Organisation. In addition, a number of international programs have been created to
focus upon improving the global situation of children, such as the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child and Mandela and Machel?s "Global
Movement for Children." Such interest in the situation of children, however, rarely
includes discussion of the ethical issues involved in the construction of children as
appropriate subjects of development. Even rarer is examination or discussion of
the culturally and historically contingent nature of assumptions about children and
childhood that are built into many programs that focus upon children. The
implications of applying programs and techniques that incorporate "Western" or
"generic" understandings of children and childhood upon children from non
Western nations should be part of such discussions.
Development programs increasingly employ national workers, not only as
stakeholders and participants, but also as initiators of programs and as directors of
resource allocation. However, with this growing trend of the participation of
?beneficiaries? of development programs in identifying needs and planning and
implementing solutions, the voices of children have, until recently, been quiet."
Karl Goodwin-Dorning
Source/publisher:
Faculty of Arts Department of Social Inquiry & Community Studies Victoria University
Date of publication:
2007-06-00
Date of entry/update:
2017-07-16
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
3.61 MB 8.6 MB 5.19 MB
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Description:
..."The monastery schools serve families whose kids wouldn?t be educated otherwise?they?re too poor to afford the nominal costs of state schools, or they live too far away from the nearest state school."...
Bruce Wallace
Source/publisher:
Public Radio International
Date of publication:
2013-02-15
Date of entry/update:
2014-10-28
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
"Monastic schools are established and managed by monks and administered through the Ministry of
Religious Affairs. They are located in every state and region, and provide education for over 150,000
children. Monastic schools follow the government curriculum, but until recently have received very
little government support, and have traditionally relied on community donations. Monastic schools
rarely charge fees, and are therefore accessible to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Facilities are generally very basic, and there is a lack of minimum standards."...
Source/publisher:
Burnet Institute Myanmar & Monastic Education Development Group
Date of publication:
2014-02-00
Date of entry/update:
2014-10-28
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
The text of the Sutta with a study by Bhikkhu Bodhi
Soma Thera (trans.), Bhikkhu Bodhi
Source/publisher:
buddhanet.net
Date of entry/update:
2014-10-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
"Burmese monastery school students hold out collection boxes to keep their classes going.
As Burmese children troop back to school this month they?ll be swapping tales of what they did in the summer holidays. While most spent their few free weeks at leisure, thousands of others will be recalling hours at the roadside collecting money to ensure that their schools can continue when term resumes.
These conscientious kids attend Burma?s 1,300 monastery schools, where free primary education is offered up to grade five and, in just a few establishments, grade eight. The alternative for their parents is to enroll them in state schools, where the fees and the cost of uniforms and school books are a big burden o?n average family budgets..."
Htet Aung
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy"
Date of publication:
2007-06-00
Date of entry/update:
2014-09-28
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
ABSTRACT: "This article explores by means of an historical descriptive analysis of schooling in Burma
the merits of historical descriptive analysis in comparative education. It demonstrates how control over
schooling is likely to relate to state legitimacy. Prior to the nineteenth century, the supervision of
teaching in Burma was undertaken not by the state but rather by the monasteries of the Theravada
Buddhist order, the Sangha. The monastic schools were widespread and they served as an important
legitimising device for both the Sangha and the Buddhist state, which were engaged in a competitive
partnership. During the nineteenth century, the British colonial administration demolished the
pre-existing socio-political structures that assured the Sangha its authority, and permitted alternative
forms of public instruction. The teaching role of the Sangha was diminished, however not destroyed,
and it continuously resisted the British intrusion. Following independence, rather than re-invest
authority over schooling in the Sangha, the new state instead expanded its mandate over public
instruction as a means to inculcate the ?national idea?. In the present day, schooling is subject to the
dictates of an autocratic military regime, and the Sangha has been forced into a subordinate role in
support of nationalist objectives, in contrast to its earlier powerful part in structural opposition to the
state."
Nick Cheesman
Source/publisher:
Comparative Education Volume 39 No. 1 2003
Date of publication:
2003-01-01
Date of entry/update:
2014-08-18
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
116.99 KB
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Description:
Conclusion:
"In both Burma and Thailand the debate is far from over. While both the idealists and the pragmatists agree that the principal aim of the monastic education systems should be to train monks in the Dhamma and Vinaya, the two sides cannot agree whether or not steps should be taken to help fulfil some educational needs of the society by bringing in some secular subjects in monastic schools.
Today, in Burma, the curricula for the various monastic examinations focus exclusively, also narrowly, from the very beginning on the study of Pali and the TipiTaka. No English, mathematics, geography, philosophy nor history are included because they are considered secular subjects.[24] As a result, even educated monks find it difficult to relate the dhamma to lay people?s lives.
In Thailand, too, the main curricula, such as the nak tham and the Pali parian, have remained exclusively religious. Although, since 1970 there has been a new curriculum, called sai saman suksa (lit. general way of education)[25], which combines the religious and the secular, it does seem this curriculum has been forced on the leadership and has not been a well thought through policy. This curriculum has too many subjects at each level means student-monks do not have sufficient time to learn properly either Pali and Buddhism or secular subjects.[26] In addition, this curriculum has been designed neither to replace nor to complement the traditional religious curricula, such as the nak tham and the parian curricula. It has thus the potential to distract, which I think it has done, the young monks from the nak tham and parian curricula. Indeed, its separate existence from the two highly regarded religious curricula, the nak tham and the parian, suggests that the idealists and the pragmatist have yet to work out the objectives of monastic education."...
Presented at the conference on "Burmese Buddhism
and the Spirit Cult Revisited - Revisiting Buddhism and the spirit cult in Burma [and Thailand]...
at Stanford University, USA by
Venerable Khammai Dhammasami, Oxford University, UK, 22-23 May 2004
Venerable Khammai Dhammasami
Source/publisher:
Stanford University, USA
Date of publication:
2004-05-23
Date of entry/update:
2010-09-17
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
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Description:
"U KAUNG, the late Commissioner of Education and an expert in Myanmar education, once said the monastic education system created morality and enshrined Myanmar culture in students....
Traditionally, monastic students were from a variety of backgrounds; monasteries were the only places rich and poor, royals and commoners attended together. They learned the ?three Rs” of reading, writing and arithmetic as well as ethics and the Buddhist way of life.
Monks have been both the spiritual teachers of the people and responsible for the basic literacy of laypersons ? although they are not technically supposed to take on this second role.
The monastic education tradition emerged from Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar in the 11th century and has been an integral part of Myanmar culture since. Monasteries played such a significant role in Myanmar education that British people who visited Myanmar in the 19th century observed Myanmar?s literacy rate was higher than Britain?s at that time..."
Nyunt Win
Source/publisher:
"The Myanmar Times" (Special Feature on education)
Date of publication:
2008-03-09
Date of entry/update:
2008-05-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education
Language:
English
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Description:
Ashin Sopaka lebt seit 3 Jahren in Köln und hat dort das buddhistische Zentrum Santi Dhamma Vihara gegründet.
1988 im Alter von 12 Jahren ist er erstmal ins Kloster als normaler Klosterschüler gegangen und wurde 6 Monate später Novize. Er blieb dem Klosterleben treu und konnte in seinem 20. Lebensjahr die 2.Ordination als Mönch durchführen. Somit lebt Ashin Sopaka bereits seit 18 Jahren, erst als Mönchsnovize dann als richtiger Mönch, in verschiedenen Klöstern und kann viel zu dem Thema Mönchsleben und die Funktion der Klöster in Myanmar sagen.
Politischer Einfluss der Sangha; Politische Haltung der Sangha; Alltagsleben im Kloster;
Monastery education; life in monasteries; role of monasteries in Burma; political influence of Buddhism;
Tanja Seller
Source/publisher:
Kölner Buddhismus Center
Date of publication:
2006-04-00
Date of entry/update:
2007-09-26
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Monastic education, Burmese Buddhism outside Burma, Buddhism and society, Buddhist Ethics, Burma Action Groups, Expatriate Groups, Round Tables etc.
Language:
German, Deutsch
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