Who we are

The Eastern Burma Community Schooling (EBCS) project is a cross ethnic initiative seeking to improve access to and the quality of education across remote ethnic areas in Eastern, Northern and North Western Burma. It is comprised of 22 different ethnic civil societies’ organizations from 12 different ethnic groups. These are 

1. Mon
2. Karen
3. Karreni
4. Kayan
5. Kachin
6. Kayaw
7. Ta’ang
8. Shan
9. Wa
10. Pa-Oh
11. Lahu  
12. Naga.  

Most of these ethnic areas are conflict affected areas and in some Shan, Ta’ang and Kachin areas, there are still ongoing conflicts amongst the armed groups. The beneficiaries in the project areas are both geographically and politically isolated and comprise some of the hardest to reach children in Myanmar. The project will directly benefit 8061 teachers in year one up to 11286 in the 2014-15 school year.

Initially, the goal is to improve the quality of teachers working in schools.  However, it is also expected that as the program becomes more entrenched and more systematic, other education assistance activities will be built onto this project.  The implementation of the program will take on many forms depending on the sociology-political situation in each of the different areas.

EBCS project is designed to bring the Karen Teacher Working Group(KTWG)'s Karen mobile teacher training model, which has proven so successful in Karen communities since its inception in 2001, to other ethnic groups across Eastern Burma and provides an opportunity for them to benefit from KTWG's experience in teacher training.