Education as Pivotal catalyst for Kachin people

 

By Maji Yaw Htung

26 March 2012

 

“The Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has emphasized the enhanced capabilities that education brings, and the resulting freedom that development brings to individuals.” According to development perspective of globalization era, development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies. Policies for education or employment need to be looked at through this double lens: how they promote growth and how they affect individuals directly. Education as human capital: investment in people yields a return, just as investment in machinery does. But education does more. It opens up minds to the notion that is possible, that there are other ways of organising production, as it teaches the basic principles of modern science and element of analytic reasoning and enhances the capacity to learn. In addition, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) measures the development with Human Development Index (HDI) in which the measure incorporates three dimensions of development in relation to human well-being; a long and healthy life, education and knowledge and decent standard of living. Hence, education is international and national booster for individuals in particular region of the globe. The importance of education as universal truth is directly linked to the Kachin nation of Myanmar (Burma).

Dating back from 14th century onwards, one of the nationalities of Myanmar (Burma) namely Kachin (Jinghpaw) has been living in Northern most and Northern Shan State of the country generation after generation until now. Until 1885, the Kachin people were illiterate meaning there was no Kachin literature. Fortunately, by the grace of God, the American missionaries such as Rev. J. Lyon, Rev. Robert, and Rev. Dr. Ola Hanson came to enlighten the Kachin not only for Baptist Mission but also for the Kachin alphabets extracted from Latin alphabets from which the Kachin literature came about. Kachin’s relationship with other neighbouring ethnics such as Shan, Palawng, Ahka, and Chin is closely related, but there were rarely relations with flat-land people such as Mon, Rahkine, Kayah and Burma except Kayin because some of the Kayin missionaries accompanied with American missionaries while scarifying for Kachin Baptist mission by dedicating their whole lives. Nevertheless, nowadays the relationship with all majority and minority ethnic groups becomes assimilated since all ethnic groups agreed to get independent together from British colony through Panlong Agreement in 1947.

 

Due to the Christian missions including Baptist and Catholic, very few Kachin youth started getting educated from 1920s onwards those educated youth took responsible for the arena of religion, culture, literature, and particularly in politic of the Kachin people accordingly. Hence, the Kachin could have survived with their own identity on the right track of national entity through standard education as well as knowledge from which even in the era of British colony, the British government used to recognize the Kachin with their own land which lies in the Northern most and partially in Northern Shan State of Myanmar (Burma).

 

When we look at the history background of Myanmar’s (Burma) education, it was inherited from the British regime as well as the Christian missions because there was no formal education system before British colony, and the mission schools produced well-trained educated students from 1900s to late 1950s. As a consequence, all educated people were standardized internationally in order to tackle national and international issues in accord with rules and procedures of the world. But nevertheless, Burma Socialist Program Party led by General Nay Win as military coup seized the country in 1962, all education system designed by the British were transformed into Burmese-oriented education and all mission schools were confiscated as public or state properties, from that time on the education of the country dramatically left further a way behind international standard and even could not catch up with neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. As a result, the education on different sectors of minorities, particularly of Kachin is not fully-fledged to make develop themselves in accord with global movement since the literature age is still in young stage and the scholars are not abundant enough to fulfil all sectors of the nation. In addition, since the country got independent, military regimes led by different Generals are trying to eradicate the Kachin entity with their own land, the Kachin young generation is being discriminated in different sectors of the country for which internationally well-trained scholars for different fields such as politic, law, IT, and so forth are demanding to represent the fore of the Kachin to cope up the affairs of the Kachin nation.

 

Since the Kachin is a primitive nation, making development for human resources is urgently needed to begin with education. Unless it is uplifted in time, the beauty of the culture, literature, and useful information of anthropological history will be endangered to be extinct as some languages and nationalities of the world were extinct.  Moreover, as the Kachin nation is thirsty of home-grown self determination for culture, literature, and different development sectors of the Kachin land, the education is a pivotal catalyst of the nation for which the youth as new generation of Kachin have to be armed with qualified education for different fields so that the Kachin’s culture and nation will stand in a stance of their own entity in the globe. In short, in the long run the education is most importantly promising to the future of Kachin nation.

 

Referencess:
Theories and Practices of Development by Katie Willis
Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz