Institutional Discriminations on Education of Rohingyas: No Admission for Outstanding Students to the Universities with Professional Studies

Matali 

RB News

30.12.2012 

(Translated into English by M.S. Anwar) 

There are so many students, in Maung Daw District, who passed the University Entrance Examination in 2012 with outstanding 3-4 distinctions and other flying colors. They applied for their respective interested courses for their tertiary education as per their examination results. According to the reports coming out, the announcement list and offers for their tertiary education had come out but none of the outstanding Rohingya students were offered the professional courses they deserve and applied for but offered those ordinary courses which they did not apply for. 

Once upon a time, Rohingya students used to get opportunities to study their university education in the fields of their interests with no discriminations. However, from 2001 onwards, the Burmese ultranationalist dictatorship government and the current pseudo-civilian fascist government of Burma have been discriminatorily seizing all the opportunities of higher education of the outstanding Rohingya students. As a result, the lives of these stupendous students ruin and sometimes they meet their untimely demises. 

“My son passed University Entrance Examination with three distinctions in 2004. He was offered no course for his university study even after one year of his application and eventually he got into depression and left his home for Malaysia. Nevertheless, unfortunately, their engine boat sank in the Bay of Bengal on its way to Malaysia and I lost my son” said to RB News by his mourning mother from Maung Daw. 

“A younger brother of mine passed his university entrance examination with four distinctions in 2008. He was not offered any of the professional courses he deserved. As a result, he got into depression and is mentally sick now” said an extremely anxious man from Buthidaung. 

“My son got three distinctions in the entrance examination in 2012. Since he achieved good grades, he applied for any of five professional courses of his interests. Shockingly, he was offered none of the courses he had applied for but Mathematics, a subject he had not applied for, was offered to him. Being a hardworking student with ambition, he is now extremely depressed and trying to commit suicide. The hearts of us, parents, bleed when we look at his situation” said a man from Buthidaung. 

In 1988, a Rakhine (Magh) extremist group called “Maung Daw AmmyoTha SaungChauk Ye Apphwe” (loosely translated into English as “Organization to Protect the National in Maung Daw”) demanded the then newly formed government by coup d’état to ban Rohingya Students from joining the universities for professional studies. The former dictator and ultranationalist general Khin Nyunt fulfilled the malicious wish of Rakhine (Magh) extremists by directing the Department for Higher Education not to give any Rohingya student from Maung Daw district admission to the Universities with Professional Studies. This is one of the many Ethnic Cleansing Policies of Myanmar’s Nazi Government implementing against Rohingyas. Such policies are still being implemented against Rohingyas by the President, U Thein Sein, who claims for Democratic Changes and Respects for Human Rights. Even though Rohingyas pleaded the government of U Thein Sein to stop such human rights violations, he is still continuing the violations. Such continuous violation of their human rights is clearly contradicting the recent statement of U Thein Sein “to Upgrade Rohingyas’ Education.” Thein Sein has proven that he is nothing an oxymoron and sociopath. 

[(Please Note: 

Maung Daw district consisting Maung Daw Tsp and Buthidaung Tsp can be called one of the most undeveloped and backward areas in Burma. There are no ample number of schools, good teachers, necessary study materials such as books, computers, internet services and so forth. 

Therefore, even merely passing the university entrance examinations in this area is not an easy task. 

And let me tell you that I was one of the victims of the same Institutional Discrimination on Education of Rohingyas. There are countless similar tragedies. 

I have deleted some writings of the original writer and added some new in order to adjust the article and make it easily understandable in English.) 

By Translator]