Junta in Myanmar targets education, suspends thousands of university staff

More than 11,000 academics and other university staff opposed to Myanmar’s ruling junta have been suspended after going on strike in protest against military rule.

The suspensions came as the resumption of universities, after a year of closure due to the coronavirus epidemic, prompted a new confrontation between the army on the one hand and academic staff and students on the other, who have called for boycotts over the February 1 coup.

A professor on a fellowship in the US said she had been told she would have to declare opposition to the strikes or lose her job. Her university authorities told her every scholar would be tracked down and forced to choose.

As of Monday, more than 11,100 staff members were suspended from colleges and universities, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.

Students and teachers were at the forefront of opposition during nearly half a century of military rule and have been prominent in the protests since the army detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and halted a decade of tentative democratic reforms.

Many teachers, as well as medics and other government workers, have downed tools as part of a civil disobedience movement that has paralysed Myanmar.

As protests flared after the coup, security forces occupied campuses in the biggest city, Yangon, and elsewhere.

The junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said teachers and students should co-operate to get the education system started again.

At the public West Yangon Technological University, the student’s union published a list of 180 staff who had been suspended to hail them as heroes.

Many students are among at least 780 people killed by security forces and the 3,800 in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group.