Designed for Disruption: Lessons Learned from Teacher Education in Myanmar and its Borderlands

• In Event: Compounding Crises: Impact of COVID-19 on Teachers and Teaching in Conflict-Affected Settings Part I

Proposal

As a result of protracted armed conflict, recurrent political crisis, widespread structural disruption, and multidimensional oppression, teacher education in Myanmar and its borderlands exists within both state and parallel systems, including ethnic and indigenous, monastic, and refugee. The present article describes a qualitative study of how actors in these teacher education systems navigated disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic paralyzed much of the teacher education provision in the centralized government system. In contrast, interviewed actors within parallel systems were able to pivot and redevelop their programming. The uses of decentralized approaches and programming flexibility, and the abilities to adapt responses to emergent needs and to operate with minimal resources, may make these parallel teacher education systems designed for disruption. How these parallel teacher education systems have continued to function amid complex emergencies may offer insights for researchers investigating how teacher education systems work in similar crisis contexts.

Authors

• William Gray Rinehart, Mote Oo Education

• Greg Tyrosvoutis, TeacherFOCUS