Access to overseas higher education for Karen students from the KNU-controlled areas: barriers and coping strategies

Abstract

The provision of education in KNU controlled areas is political as it is indispensable to development and national identity building. In fact, issues of legitimacy are key to understanding education services in these areas. Through the Karen Education and Culture Department, the KNU has mainly been providing education services in its controlled areas with its own curriculum and administration for the past seventy years since the beginning of civil war in Myanmar. However, the students cannot access to universities in Myanmar due to the lack of recognition of their learning attainments by the Myanmar government and only a handful of students could pay their ways to universities abroad. As the KNU is the authority in the areas, the study argues that it has the central roles and responsibilities to fulfill rights to education because the Myanmar government does not have access and control over these areas. This study aims to identify major barriers of the students in accessing overseas higher education by using human rights based approach to higher education, specifically pertaining to availability and accessibility of education and explore how the students coped with the barriers so as to have access to overseas higher education. In this study, thematic analysis is utilized through case study approach under qualitative research methodology. The research finds that there are three emerging barriers pertaining to the practical challenges and two major barriers related to the structural challenges directly influenced by the central government. In order to cope with the barriers, the students used social network, human capital and mobility to Thailand so as to pave their way to overseas higher education. In fact, the students can only access bridging programs if they manage to come to Thai-Myanmar border as Thailand served as a widow of opportunities for them. This suggests that migrant and refugee students from Thai-Burma border have more and better access to overseas higher education than the students in KNU-controlled areas.