Over 6 Million of Myanmar’s Children Not Going to School: Report

Over 6.3 million of Myanmar’s children are not going to school in the 2026-27 academic year that started on June 1, according to data from the Institute for Strategy and Policy–Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar).

That accounts for nearly half the total school-aged population of an estimated 13 million.

The report said the number of children and youth enrolled in basic education stands at just 6.7 million this academic year, compared to pre-coup enrolment of 9.7 million in 2019-2020.

The report cited several reasons, including poverty, armed conflict, and administrative barriers to enrolment for war-displaced students.

A mother of two from Yangon told The Irrawaddy she had to stop sending her Grade-8 daughter to school. “Even though the school is free of charge, there are costs for books and uniforms that I can’t afford,” she said. “She wanted to go to school, but I just can’t afford it” on her income as a casual laborer.

In many cases, children’s education has been cut short by war and unrest. In May, the Education Ministry introduced a new placement test for students from grades 2 to 9 who have been outside the state education system since 2021. But it applies only to primary- and middle-school students, leaving many high-school-age students without a road back into formal education.

Students who have been displaced by conflict also face barriers to school enrolment if they lack the required educational records and transfer certificates from their previous schools.

The parallel National Unity Government (NUG) established its own education system after the coup for students and teachers who refuse to study or serve under the regime-controlled education system. Operating in resistance-held territories in central Myanmar, it had more than 700,000 students in nearly 6,000 schools in the 2023-24 academic year.

But the risks from armed conflict and the regime’s aerial attacks on schools remain high.

“Some parents stop sending their kids to school for security reasons, and some moved to [regime] schools because then there is at least no threat from airstrikes,” admitted a member of the education committee in Sagaing’s resistance-held Khin U Township.

He added one student was recently killed by regime artillery, and schools have to be careful all the time.

One trigger was the infamous O Htein Twin school massacre in May 2025, when a regime fighter jet bombed an NUG-run school in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township, killing 22 schoolchildren and two teachers while injuring hundreds of others.

Afterwards parents became afraid of sending their children to school, and schools switched to secret home-based teaching for some students who want to continue their education.

The father of a boy from Depayin recently told The Irrawaddy that he will not send him to school any more as there is no accessible higher education path under the NUG’s education system even if his son finishes Grade 12.

“It is enough if he can write and read English and Burmese,” he said. “I may put him into vocational training.”

In fact, the NUG does have a handful of universities and vocational colleges under its umbrella, but they mostly teach online or operate out of clandestine hutments in the jungle.

The mother of an eight-year-old girl from Mandalay Region’s Natogyi Township says she now relies on private tuition in a nearby village as neither the NUG or the regime can run any schools in her resistance-held area.

The NUG cannot run them because of frequent regime airstrikes or shellings, while the regime does not have enough of a foothold to establish its own administration.

The education crisis began right after the 2021 military coup, when hundreds of thousands of students and teachers boycotted schools under military rule.

By April 2024, Myanmar Witness had recorded 174 attacks and other violent incidents affecting educational institutions, killing and injuring dozens, predominantly by regime forces. Sagaing Region was the most affected.

Coup leader-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing has frequently blamed lack of education for resistance to his dictatorship and stressed the need to improve public education.

But the ISP report points out that education spending remains below pre-coup levels, accounting for just 6.02 percent of the national budget in the 2024–25 academic year. This year the regime plans to allocate 6.92 percent.