Displacing the schools: default privatization and “school-less” arrangements for shadow education in Myanmar

Abstract

The so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring has in some contexts been described as privatisation by default rather than by government policy. An allied literature shows that while such tutoring claims to supplement, it may also undermine schooling. This paper, with data from Myanmar, identifies ways in which shadow education competes even to the extent of displacing schooling. A survey of students in the last grade of secondary schooling indicated that 78.7% were receiving supplementary tutoring. Further, significant numbers of students formerly in the penultimate grade – estimated at 60-70% in one district – had absented themselves from school entirely for the final grade in order to devote time to “school-less” arrangements known as kyaungpyawt. Interview data helped to identify a range of patterns for different categories of students and locations, and to note ways in which these forms of shadow education inter-related with schooling. In the process, the paper exposes multiple complexities. The data help to elaborate conceptual frameworks, and the paper has implications for broad international analysis of privatisation processes and substitutions.