The Burmese military regime has stated that the literacy rate in the country has increased to 94.83 percent in 2008, according to the state controlled The New Light of Myanmar.

The newspaper said this was the result of the concerted effort by the Ministry of Education and other ministries, international agencies, INGOs, GOs, regional and local authorities and the communities.

It stated that the initiation of Community Learning Centres (CLC) had led to new literate learners gaining a good foundation for basic literacy. The CLC currently is being introduced under the supervision of the Department of Myanmar Education Research Bureau (DMERB).

The (CLC) can be regarded as an information centre, a vocational training centre, discussion club, reading centre, library, cultural centre, entertainment centre.

The literacy rate declared by the Burmese government could not be possible, according to a high school principle in southern Burma who has been into adult illiteracy in the past, "It cannot be the actual statistics. About one- third of it is incorrect."

The school principle said that the literacy programmes don't work at the local level. And the local authorities also report just the numbers although no work is done.

"They (authorities) tried to increase the rate of illiteracy by opening reading centers in quarters, but in reality it did not work. That's why they just report incorrect numbers to their higher authorities," the principle added.

Most people are not interested in education, the principle said. Literacy is not so important for them because graduates rarely get jobs and they are more concerned about their survival rather than education.

According to the school teacher, the number of illiterate people in rural areas is still high and the number of school drop outs is increasing.

The principle said that people have to pay bribe to institutes to go through the entrance and also to the government department where they want to work.