Since academic year 2014-2015, Help without Frontiers promotes non-formal education opportunities in order to ensure migrant children can have their education recognised inside Myanmar and further their studies. Through the two-year Non-Formal Primary Education (NFPE) program, students passing level 1 and level 2 in Thailand are given recognition of their education achievements inside Myanmar thus awarding certificates of completion of, respectively, Grade 2 and Grade 4. As such, the Department of Alternative Education (DAE) of Myanmar, Ministry of Education, coordinates NFPE programs inside Thailand and allows migrant students to further their education in any government school inside Myanmar. In school year 2018-2019, 735 students, taught by forty-four teachers, are enrolled in NFPE programs in twenty-two learning centres in Tak province and Bangkok.
In school year 2017-2018, a Non-Formal Middle Education (NFME) program was launched as a pilot project in Sauch Kha Hong Sar learning centre in Mae Sot. Twenty-two students will sit down for the final examination of the two-year pilot project and will have the chance to obtain a certificate corresponding to Grade 6 inside Myanmar public schools.
Regular monitoring visits are undertaken by the DAE to assess the implementation of non-formal programs in migrant learning centres. On 15 January 2019, three township and regional monitors from the Myanmar Ministry of Education (MOE) met with the Education team of Help without Frontiers in order to assess the progresses of the NFPE and NFME programs and discuss the future developments. On that occasion, the representatives of the Myanmar MOE visited Sauch Kha Hong Sar and Ah Yone Oo learning centres to know more about the challenges that students and teachers face in their non-formal education as well as to monitor the academic achievements of the students and the quality of the system of record keeping.
Following such visits, Help without Frontiers continues to gain permission and confidence from the DAE, Myanmar MOE, in the implementation of the successful NFPE and NFME programs.
The cooperation with the Myanmar Ministry of Education has strengthened other education interventions and created synergies such as improving the communication around the annual training of teachers in migrant learning centres in the regular Myanmar government curriculum carried out in Myawaddy, Karen State. Previously over-aged students passing level 1 or level 2 in the NFPE program can now enrol with their age group in school, either in migrant learning centres in Thailand implementing the government curriculum or in government schools inside Myanmar. Moreover, previously unrecognized migrant teachers in Thailand who are trained by DAE are now recognized as NFPE teachers and can continue teaching inside Myanmar. Through the training and recognition, teachers are increasingly equipped, active and confident in their role as education providers.
However, financial challenges remain a serious threat to the implementation of non-formal education programs. Since the inception of NFPE program a few years ago, the number of enrolled students increased by 80%. In June 2019, following the success of the pilot project, the first batch of students will enrol to NFME program and will commit to a three-year intensive educational path.
Help without Frontiers remains committed to ensuring educational opportunities are available to the greatest extent so as to ensure migrant students living in Thailand can contribute to the social and economic development of their country, if and when they will return to Myanmar.
