‘Students, stay away from politics’

University students in Myanmar are warned by their own government: if they ever get involved in politics, they can be expelled.

There’s no room for mistakes. “If students under the Ministry of Science and Technology are involved in political activities, they [will be] subject to expulsion from their universities,” a governmental statement says. It does not matter if you are a leader or if you just sympathize with a political movement. Students have had a big influence on political changes in the past, like the ‘88 generation‘, who fought the military junta in 1988.

The students now lobby for more freedom and autonomy for higher education. Students who enrolled in universities across the country, had to sign pledges that made them promise not to cause any uproar. By many, all of this is seen as a step backwards. Myanmar has come a long way since the military regime, and student unions were emerging in recent years.