School time changes due to military training

As many school teachers in Mon State have to attend the military training in Mon State, the teaching time changes in schools, said by a civilian from Thanbyuzayat Township.

Since the beginning of October, schools in Thanbyuzayat Town starts 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m in the morning and in afternoon it starts 12:00 a.m. and stops at 1:30 p.m. The normal school time is from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. in the morning and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. afternoon.

The reason of changing school time to be earlier than normal is because most teachers have to attend military training in the evening time. Government servants in Thanbyuzayat Township are divided into groups and are forced to attend training in military schools, which is about 5 miles far from the town. They have to go to the training school everyday and have no available time to teach the students in full schdule.

In Mudon Township, the servants have to attend schools in Infantry Battalion No. 209 base everyday, said by a trader who arrived to the border.

He said, “(in Mudon Township) the military training school time is from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m in the morning and from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the evening. But only an half of teachers attend school and the remaining are at school. For example, if there are 6 teachers, 3 of them have to attend.” After the first group complete training, the second group would attend training accordingly to the authority’s instruction. But the school teaching time does not change in Mudon Township.

The government servants in Ye Township are attending in the Infantry Battalion No. 61 base in town.

“When there was rain we have to learn only in classes. There was waste of time, waste of money and we lost opportunity to work”, said by a trainee from a village in southern part of Ye Township.

SPDC claims they provide military training to servants to protect foreign invasion. However, the local civilians believe that there is no external enemy and the Burmese Army just try to extend their troop number and uproot the activities of rebel force, said by that villager.

Not only the school teachers, Township administrative office in Thanbyuzayat also have no available staff to work in office after most staff attend training, said the source.

The authorities also collect money from the civilians for expenses in these training schools. The trainees also have to buy for uniform with their own money.