The junta will require a one-month mandatory military training course for hundreds of students from higher education institutions operating under the Ministry of Border Affairs amid major losses of Myanmar army soldiers in battles against the anti-coup resistance nationwide.
The affected universities and colleges are the University for the Development of the National Races located in Sagaing, and two degree colleges of Nationalities Youth Resource Development, located in Yangon’s Dagon Seikkan and in Ohn Taw in Sagaing. All three are managed by the education and training department of the junta’s border affairs ministry. More than 570 students in total from the three institutions would be required to enrol in the training program.
According to an October 6 notification letter sent by the ministry of border affairs to the defence ministry and seen by Myanmar Now, the courses may be delivered off-campus at specialised training compounds or at schools managed by the military’s chief of armed forces training. The letter said that this accommodation was “due to the security and information risks as well as the inability to carry out shooting exercises” on campus.
The practical “small firearms” shooting exercises will only be provided to the students from the two degree colleges but not those from the university. The ministry also requested that the junta provide the required ammunition.
According to previous attendees, before the 2021 coup, students at schools under the border affairs ministry attended basic military-related courses, but they did not include gunfire.
“The basic military training has existed for a long time but it’s not normal that they’re involving guns,” said Cpt Tun Myat Aung, a former military officer who defected to the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement and a graduate of a border affairs ministry-run school for youth in Chin State.
He speculated that the new training approach might make youth “compliant to go to war for them” at a time when young people are reluctant to join the junta’s forces.
