The cover story of the April 2010 edition of Living Color is “Changes to the Myanmar basic education sector and a private education system”. As the title suggests, the story covers the planned return of private schooling to the country after over four decades since the nationalization of private schools in 1965-66.

According to the main feature, the education ministry is already in negotiations with institutions for licenses to operate officially as schools, provided that they comply with the government curriculum, textbook requirements and so on. A new private education law and rules are set to be issued soon, which will cover up to tertiary entrance level.

The article goes on to look at private schooling in other countries around the world and then explores other aspects of how private schooling is likely to work in Myanmar in the near future.

The National Library of Australia has also begun subscribing to the Journal of the Myanmar Civil Service, an entirely Burmese-language professional publication on the work of the country’s bureaucracy. The contents are rather dry but should be useful to researchers of the state administration in Myanmar. The most recent edition (September 2009) contains articles on: the state constitution and civil servants; the Urban and Housing Development Department, and the Irrigation Department; and studies of civil services in China and Singapore, among other things. Interested readers can see the scanned contents page here.

[This post is provided by the National Library of Australia as part of our Book Zone feature. For further information on the featured publications contact Nick Cheesman at [email protected]]