Rainy days are a particular challenge for teacher Daw Kyi. Her classroom is not really a room at all. It`s just a roof to shelter under, with no walls, so when it rains it is so noisy and wet that it can be impossible to teach.
Even on dry days there are so many distractions she must contend with to keep the interest of her grade 3 pupils. For instance, pilgrims come and go from the nearby pagoda. Daw Kyi explains: “The children look out at the things going on, and it is difficult for them to focus.”
Because the school has so few classrooms, grades 3 and 4 are both squeezed under the same roof with their respective teachers. Daw Kyi and the grade 4 teacher try to take turns instructing their respective classes, so they aren`t required to shout over each other.
Daw Kyi has been teaching for eight years. She’s committed, even evangelical, about her work and its importance to individual students and the prospects of the country. Daw Kyi is not in it for the money, she earns less than US$50 a month. But she is proud to see the second graders who were the first class she taught eight years ago, those of them who remain at school now graduated into grade 10.
“When I see this, my joy is unlimited,” says Daw Kyi.
However, she finds it distressing to witness the lost potential as individual students vanish out of the classroom too early.
Daw Kyi tells the story of a boy, Win, who is in her present class. He is smart, she says. “But because of his parents` financial situation, sometimes the child does not come to school.
“We asked him what he does and he said he peels onions. Because of that, Win comes to school in the morning but not the afternoon.”
Eventually, city life proved too expensive, and the boy and his family are now making plans to move back to their rural village.
Daw Kyi has seen children leave school after just grades 1 or 2. She tries to keep them coming until grade 4 at a minimum so that if they end up as street vendors, they at least have basic numeracy skills and can calculate well enough to survive.
And she remains wholeheartedly committed to her work. Daw Kyi explains: “For the future of my students, my belief is that they must know more than me. I want them to be more educated and more clever than I.”
To mark World Day Against Child Labour this week, we share the story of Ma Nwe, one of the thousands of children in Myanmar who are forced out of school too early and into work too soon.
Ma Nwe was eight years of age, and had completed less than four years of primary school, when household poverty forced her to leave school to care for her younger siblings while her parents were at work. Just a few years later, tragedy struck with the death of her father and Ma Nwe`s working life began in earnest. She was just 13 years old.
In Myanmar, there is widespread acceptance of working children. It is estimated that almost one in five children aged 10-14 years are participating in the labour market. According to International Labour Organization definitions, around half of this gro’p are engaged in hazardous child labour work which puts a child`s physical, mental or moral wellbeing at risk.
To have regular employment in a factory makes Ma Nwe luckier than many of her peers. But the hours are grinding, particulary for a child. Nor is there any reprieve on weekends. Seven days a week, she gets up at 6.00am to get ready for work. Ma Nwe has just one rest day each month, on a full moon day, when the factory closes.
The majority of children in Myanmar who drop out of school do so to earn money to support their family or themselves. Some sell basic snacks, and odds and ends, others work in food preparation and packing, or in tea shops and restaurants.
Where jobs are few, children may be found plucking their way through rubbish looking for plastic and other materials they can exchange for cash. Those in formal employment work mainly in agriculture, forestry, fishing, manufacturing trades, mining and brick making.
Now aged 17, Ma Nwe should be close to finishing secondary school. Instead, she has been an employee at the factory for four years. She earns less than $80 a month and gives the whole amount to her mother to keep the family afloat.
With low levels of education and a lack of vocational skills, the future employment prospects for children like Ma Nwe are severely limited – jobs which are available will be accompanied by low wages and possibly harsh or dangerous conditions. Ma Nwe’s mother knows this all too well. Having left school as an eight-year-old, she has worked for many years as an unskilled labourer on construction sites – hauling bricks and materials. It is back-breaking and poorly paid work.
Unlike her mother, Ma Nwe can read and write. Nonetheless, she sees limited prospects for her future employment. She says: “When I had to leave school, I was still young and I didn`t feel much. But now, when I see others going to school, I feel so sorry.”
