Myanmar's educators reach out to the world

Yangon Technological University has come a long way since it was the site of anti-government student protests in 1988 that eventually spread across Myanmar. The campus has been refurbished and a sense of normality is beginning to return. One important question is how the university is going to forge links with the outside world, writes Lara Farrar for The New York Times.

Like many other universities in Myanmar, Yangon Technological lacks adequate teaching materials, research facilities and updated technology, all of which a foreign partner could bring. Nyi Hla Nge, a retired rector at the university, said he had written a letter to the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seeking to “establish cooperation”.

Foreign institutions say the Education Ministry is showing new openness. “Our ability to engage with them has quadrupled over the last few months,” said Andrew Leahy, a public diplomacy officer with the US Embassy in Yangon who is working on exchange programmes. In January, the US Embassy placed the first Fulbright scholar in nearly three decades at Yangon University.
Full report on The New York Times site