“We would like to increase the teachers’ salaries, but the budget isn’t large enough [to do so]. At a recent [MNEC] meeting we weren’t able to make a decision on the pay-raise yet,” said MNEC member Nai Aie Kon.

Nai Aie Kon continued that the MNEC is working hard to find a way to increase Mon teachers’ monthly salaries to 50,000 kyat from their current 20,000 kyat monthly amount.

Some Mon Buddhist monks who deliver Dharma talks abroad and receive donations from Buddhists created an education fund for Mon teachers, and a group of Mons living in Australia donated 3 million kyat to this fund on August 22nd.

“We teachers receive 20,000 kyat per month from [the Mon] education department and two tins of rice from the village. But now the price of rice has increased so we don’t receive the rice anymore. With only 20,000 kyat we just can’t survive,” said a Mon national primary school teacher in Ye Township.

The first Mon National School was established in 1972 and taught the Mon language at every grade level. In 1984, a delegation for Mon national education was created, and today there are over 800 Mon teachers working at 156 Mon National Schools—including three high schools—under the administration of the Mon National Education Department.

The Mon National Education Committee was founded in 1993. According to the committee’s records, 15,000 students are currently attending Mon National Schools and over 20,000 students are either studying Mon or taking other subjects taught in Mon at government schools.