Schools

YANGON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar official media Tuesday stressed the important role of school teachers in producing human resources capable of facing and overcoming the challenges of knowledge age in the 21st Century.

In its editorial, the state-run New Light of Myanmar called for efforts to assign enough teachers in every region including border areas and to conduct more teachership and management courses.

Pointing out that high morale is primary in striving for all-round development of youths, the editorial held that teachers are to train and inculcate the students with knowledge, education and skill as well as with the habit of helping and understanding others and observing ethics and morality.

Under a 30-year long-term education promotion plan, the editorial urged all teachers to teach, train and nurture the students like their own children, saying that only then will qualified intellectuals and technocrats capable of serving the national interest.

Meanwhile, Myanmar education authorities have also emphasized the need for rural schools in the country to strive for keeping pace with urban ones to reduce the development gap of education between the two areas, urging the teachers to make their utmost in the aspects.

According to official statistics, 86.41 percent of basic education schools are in rural areas with 68.25 percent of students being rural people.

As of 2007, the number of basic education schools in Myanmar amounted to 40,553 with the number of teachers registering 260,000 and that of students 8.83 million. Multi-media classrooms stood 1,694 in number as of the same period, statistics indicate.

More figures reveal that there were 64 universities and colleges in the country with 520,000 higher education students up to the period.