Strengthening Agricultural Vocational Education in Myanmar

 Date

Written by:

Teus Korevaar Head of international office

Since 2016, Aeres has been involved in the project Strengthening of vocational education and training for food security in Myanmar. In this project, Aeres and partners help to give agri-education in Myanmar a boost. Much has been achieved in a short time. At the 15 SAIs (State Agricultural Institutes - comparable with Dutch Agricultural BTEC education), spread throughout the country, the curriculum has been revised and adapted to regional needs, teachers have received extensive training in new didactics and new subjects and investments in IT requirements have been made.

Scoping mission

In 2015, Arie de Jong, project manager, travelled to Myanmar with colleague Teus Korevaar. The aim: to draw up the state of affairs of agricultural education on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What they saw were full classrooms, traditional didactics focused on subject matter and the same curriculum on all SAIs, not adapted to the possibilities of the region and the needs of the local labour market. The education did include fieldwork and practical lessons, but the group size impeded the acquisition of skills.
 
It was inconsistent with Myanmar's desire to become self-sufficient and to eventually start exporting food. In consultation with Myanmar's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, responsible for agricultural education, the goals were set: a new curriculum for the SAIs that is attuned to the regional land use and local labour market, has a focus on competence based learning and is gender sensitive and inclusive. "We need to educate many skill full professionals through our SAIs to meet our goals for food security, food safety and nutrition for the people of Myanmar", says Dr. Ye Tint Tun, Director General of the Department of Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation. "We need the innovative ideas and experience from Aeres and other partners to help build an agricultural education program in Myanmar."