Literacy rates and education in pre-colonial and colonial Myanmar

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Within her larger discussion on education, Alicia Turner discusses literacy rates in pre-colonial Myanmar, and how shocked the Birtish were to discover the very high rate of literacy there in her 2014 book Saving Buddhism. As part of their Buddhist education most young boys - but also many young girls who were mostly taught in non-moastic schools of that time - learned to read and write in both Burmese and Pāli:

"Late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European observers were impressed with the ubiquity of the ability to read and write in Burma. Explorers, diplomats, and missionaries alike were astounded at how common literacy was among men, and often women, of all classes. Michael Symes remarked in 1795 that “a knowledge of letters is so widely diffused, that there are no mechanics, few of the peasantry, or even the common watermen (usually the most illiterate class) who cannot read and write in the vulgar tongue.”2 Wide-eyed reports such as this cultivated the European image of the Burmese as a highly literate culture.3

The origin of this universal literacy, European observers explained, was the institution of the village monastery and the practice of sending all young boys to the monastery to receive elementary training prior to their ordination as novices. Father Sangermano, writing of Burma at the turn of the nineteenth century, explained:

It must be acknowledged that the Burmese owe much to the Talapoins [monks], for the whole of the youth of the Empire is educated by them. Scarcely are the children arrived at the age of reason when they are consigned to their care; and after a few years most of them put on the dress of a Talapoin, that they may be taught to read and write, and may also acquire merit for themselves and their relations.4

Although few boys stayed past their novice ordination, the system was effective in educating the majority of the male population. Building on these early descriptions, discussions of Burmese literacy and monastery schools became standard fare for travelers’ accounts and colonial reminiscences published back home.5 Almost every account of Burma published in the second half of the nineteenth century included a few pages on education, with the most famous dedicating whole chapters to the subject, projecting an image of the Burmese as particularly progressive in the area of education.6 Popular magazines ran articles on Burmese schools and published reviews of even the driest text on the subject: the government’s Report on Public Instruction in Burma.7 The interest was not limited to England; the Russian Indologist Ivan Minayeff visited Burma to observe primary education in the monasteries.8

The idea of near universal literacy was so strongly embedded in the consciousness of Europeans in Burma that it outweighed that quintessential mode of colonial knowledge—the census.9 When the first census of British Burma was taken in 1872, the results showed that only 24.37 percent of men and 1.37 percent of women could read and write.10 Although these figures were higher than those for the rest of British India, the census takers themselves disputed their accuracy, citing personal experience over their scientific enumeration methods.11 They claimed it was rare to meet a Burmese man who could not read and write, and refused to believe the numbers that were, in other areas, an article of faith for colonial bureaucrats. The census report of 1872 dedicated two full pages to reconciling how they could have arrived at what were, to the authors, such clearly false numbers. They speculated on the modesty of the Burmese population in reporting their educational accomplishments and the laxity of the district administrators in asking the questions, but never questioned the accuracy of the received knowledge that the Burmese as a culture were well educated and valued education.

The British were quick to place the Burmese system of monastery education as superior to any other system in the colonies. Burma was “one of the most literate of all the lands of the East,” a comparison that could be used both to praise Burmese civilization and to justify further civilizing efforts elsewhere in India.12 This fascination with widespread literacy did not limit itself to comparison with other colonial possessions. Observers compared the Burmese system favorably to those of Europe.13 Henry Gouger remarked of his time in Mandalay in the 1820s that “my impression was that a larger proportion of the common people could read and write in Burmah than could be found among similar classes in our own country.”14 John S. Furnivall, writing in the 1930s to correct earlier claims, argued that “a hundred years ago the first English Commissioner reported that almost every one could read and write and, even if this report may have been touched with exaggeration, it is certain that the proportion of people who could read and write was then far higher in Burma than in England.”15 The evidence supports a claim that late nineteenth-century Burmese literacy rates were much higher than those of the rest of British India and higher than some countries in Europe.16 However, for our purposes, the empirical literacy rates are less interesting than the British perceptions, because conflicting conceptions of literacy and religion lay at the heart of the conflict over education policy."

Turner, Alicia. Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory, 37) (pp. 46-47). University of Hawaii Press. Kindle Edition.

It appears the emphasis on literacy started in late 18th century Buddhist reforms which also affected education:

"The monastic reforms beginning in the 1780s likely also shaped the education of young boys. The Thudhamma reformers of King Bodawpaya’s time argued that the decline in the sāsana was due to the fact that novices were poorly trained in the Pali texts and insisted that new novices must learn the words and the letters of the texts.42 This concern created the curriculum of the Patamabyan Pali examinations discussed in Chapter 2 and elevated reciting Pali texts to the pinnacle of monastic practice.43 Reform ideals established curriculum and education as central issues for the sāsana and mandated memorization as a pedagogical method.

In addition, part of these reforms was a process of purging monastic curriculum of lay-oriented and practical forms of knowledge. Reformist monks accused their opponents of teaching skills that were directed toward earning a living as a layperson and specialized sciences not directly related to Buddhist textual reflection or monastic practice. Such knowledge was rejected as corrupting, and monks accused of teaching it were defrocked, practices that would have consequences for the colonial engagement of monastery education.44

Turner, Alicia. Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory, 37) (p. 52). University of Hawaii Press. Kindle Edition.

The last sentence is an understatement. As Turner goes on to explain, this had huge consequences for education under Colonial rule and eventually led to a much bigger emphasis on secular schools where most children were taught with a great emphasis on secular topics and where Buddhism was taught for only 30 minutes a day.

As she goes on to explain, the whole fabric of society began to change…

Renaldo

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The Minekhine Sayadaw was commisioned by the Pakhan Sayadaw to write a treatise on whether or not the monks could teach secular subjects to the students at the monasteries. He concluded in the treatise that monks should not teach secular subjects, including the sciences, because they fall into the category of lokāyata knowledge, or materialistic, worldly knowledge.

I haven’t read this treatise, and I don’t know if there is an English translation of it (as I don’t speak Burmese), but it would be interesting to see if anybody here who has read it agrees with the conclusion and whether or not this kind of teaching is excluded by Vinaya.

The Minekhine Sayadaw was unable to edit it before passing away, but his draft of the treatise was published in 1913, and it became the main impetus for monks abstaining from teaching secular knowledge to the students.

The end result of this decision was that secular British schooling was strongly encouraged in various ways by the British, and the secular schools took over the main role as the primary educational institutions for children, causing the attendance at the monastic schools and the influence that monks had on education to drop significantly.

Now whether teaching secular knowledge is impermissible as per Vinaya - as the Minekhine Sayadaw claimed it was - or not, refusing to do so caused the British to strongly push for their secular schools and caused those schools to replace the system of monastic schooling as the primary places of education. I argue that this was preventable as the British already respected the high literacy rates and educational system of the Burmese and tried to get them to add secular education to their own system. The Burmese, however, refused to take on secular education in their own schools when pushed to do so. The predictable result, of course, was the British establishing and pushing secular schooling with a very strong emphasis on British secular education for young Burmans, including only half and hour per day of traditional Buddhist education.

The Buddhist education was so poor in these schools that many Burmese school children did not even understand the meaning of the precepts - precepts which they themselves took on occasion. The Buddhist education of the majority of the youth became puerile. In a matter of decades it departed from becoming literate in Burmese and Pāli and then learning and memorizing many Buddhist texts including the Maṅgala Sutta, Sigālovāda Sutta, Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, the whole Dhammapada, many Jātakas, as well as various other texts and treatises, to having a very non-serious Buddhist education where many did not understand basics, nor even the meaning of the precepts they took.

Now, I very much praise the monks for doing their best to try and preserve Buddhism (the Minekhine Sayadaw and all the monks involved in not teaching secular subjects), but the cold hard fact is that Burma had already been militarily defeated by the British, and the monks still had influence, but not true power. The Konbaung Dynasty lost during the Anglo-Burmese wars. The First Anglo-Burmese War resulted in Burma losing Arakan, Manipur, Assam, and Tenasserim. The Second Anglo-Burmese War resulted in the British conquering Lower Burma. And the Third Anglo-Burmese War in which the Brits captured Mandalay, resulted in the entire country being annexed and becoming part of British India. At this point, you have to make some concessions. Perhaps these were not made because the Sayadaw had hope that Myanmar would gain independence soon? At that point, Myanmar was still part of British India, the nationalist uprising of 1930 led by Saya San was still seventeen years away, the resulting separation of Burma from British India by the British was still twenty-four years away, and the beginning of WWI, which would result in the Labour Party who favored decolinzation coming to power in Britian six years after that, was still twenty-six years away. Anyone who thought that the British would not continue to rule for at least a few more decades was sorely mistaken.

The decision not to teach the secualr subjects in the monasteries where the monks could at least ensure that the children received a substantive Buddhist education in addition to learning the secular subjects resulted in a significant decrease in the general population’s understanding of Buddhism as a whole, as well as a decrease in their ethical conduct, neither of which are helpful if you are trying to preserve the Buddhist Sāsana, or Burmese culture under Colonial occupation and rule.

In Saving Buddhism Alicia Turner reports that after the secular schools rose in influence, many Burmese complained that children no longer respected their parents, drinking and opium smoking became much more rampant, as did gambling, billiards playing, boys parading around using coarse language and harrasing girls, as well as using peashooters and stones, partying, and even stabbinging each other. And that this was being reported regularly in journals and newspapers. Secular society, unsurprisingly, was not nearly as moral as the previous religious one had been.

After WWII, the British Empire was significantly weakened, and the Burmese finally won their independence in January of 1948, and power was handed over to the AFPFL, a democratic administration that won in a landslide victory. Their control only lasted from 1948 until 1962, which is only a mere fourteen years.

The fact that the Burmese chose to go with a democratic government is very interesting, considering the fact that before British occupation, there were monarchies in place for a very a long time. It shows the strong influence of the education in the secular schools, removed from Buddhist learning, and where Buddhist history could also have been taught.

After a long line of monarchies in Burma that lasted for nearly 1,000 years, in just 100 years of British rule, the Burmese chose a Western system of government when they finally became free even though the average length of democratic states is around 50 - 150 years with only 5% of democracies having lasted more than 200 years, and the average lifespan of Kingdoms is 200 - 300 years with some lasting from 500 - 1,000 or more years (the longest lasting over 1,700 years). Not to mention that the religion that the people were separated from in the secular schools tended to thrive under Buddhist Kings who built many temples and pagodas, provided royal support, etc.

Renaldo

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I am sure it is no coincidence that the Venerable Ledi Sayadāw wrote a treatise called A Guide to Good Conduct for Youths. The year of publication is not known, but it was at some point in the early 1900s, which matches the timeframe of the rise of the secular schools.

https://www.aimwell.org/sukumara.html

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  • The early 20th century.
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Machiavelli points out:

Desiring, therefore, to discuss the nature of the government of Rome, and to ascertain the accidental circumstances which brought it to its perfection, I say, as has been said before by many who have written of Governments, that of these there are three forms, known by the names Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, and that those who give its institutions to a State have recourse to one or other of these three, according as it suits their purpose. Other, and, as many have thought, wiser teachers, will have it, that there are altogether six forms of government, three of them utterly bad, the other three good in themselves, but so readily corrupted that they too are apt to become hurtful. The good are the three above named; the bad, three others dependent upon these, and each so like that to which it is related, that it is easy to pass imperceptibly from the one to the other. For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. So that if the founder of a State should establish any one of these three forms of Government, he establishes it for a short time only, since no precaution he may take can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice…

…I say, then, that all these six forms of government are pernicious—the three good kinds, from their brief duration the three bad, from their inherent badness. Wise legislators therefore, knowing these defects, and avoiding each of these forms in its simplicity, have made choice of a form which shares in the qualities of all the first three, and which they judge to be more stable and lasting than any of these separately. For where we have a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy existing together in the same city, each of the three serves as a check upon the other…

…But let us now turn to Rome, which city, although she had no Lycurgus to give her from the first such a constitution as would preserve her long in freedom, through a series of accidents, caused by the contests between the commons and the senate, obtained by chance what the foresight of her founders failed to provide. So that Fortune, if she bestowed not her first favours on Rome, bestowed her second; because, although the original institutions of this city were defective, still they lay not outside the true path which could bring them to perfection. For Romulus and the other kings made many and good laws, and such as were not incompatible with freedom; but because they sought to found a kingdom and not a commonwealth, when the city became free many things were found wanting which in the interest of liberty it was necessary to supply, since these kings had not supplied them. And although the kings of Rome lost their sovereignty, in the manner and for the causes mentioned above, nevertheless those who drove them out, by at once creating two consuls to take their place, preserved in Rome the regal authority while banishing from it the regal throne, so that as both senate and consuls were included in that republic, it in fact possessed two of the elements above enumerated, to wit, the monarchic and the aristocratic.

It then only remained to assign its place to the popular element, and the Roman nobles growing insolent from causes which shall be noticed hereafter, the commons against them, when, not to lose the whole of their power, they were forced to concede a share to the people; while with the share which remained, the senate and consuls retained so much authority that they still held their own place in the republic. In this way the tribunes of the people came to be created, after whose creation the stability of the State was much augmented, since each the three forms of government had now its due influence allowed it. And such was the good fortune of Rome that although her government passed from the kings to the nobles, and from these to the people, by the steps and for the reasons noticed above, still the entire authority of the kingly element was not sacrificed to strengthen the authority of the nobles, nor were the nobles divested of their authority to bestow it on the commons; but three, blending together, made up a perfect State; which perfection, as shall be fully shown in the next two Chapters, was reached through the dissensions of the commons and the senate.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discourses (p. 10). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

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