As Myanmar reopens, so does its universities

By Hereward Holland. Closed following student unrest in 1988, Yangon University is accepting undergraduates again in a sign of change. Once a hotbed of political subversion, the old foundations of the Rangoon Student Union now sustain a grove of trees that sway sleepily in regimental rows. A student sits on a wall nearby, leafing through a text book.
The old building was blown up in 1962 by the first of Burma's secretive military juntas that steered the country through decades of misrule and eviscerated its once-prestigious higher education system.
Half a century and a name-change later, the leafy avenues of Yangon University are crawling with the first crop of undergraduates to study a curriculum free from the interfering hand of the military. More...