Source: Htoo Tay Zar

The Burmese opposition leader told an event held at the University of London today that there were ¡°no residential universities in Burma¡±. Campus life had been ¡°destroyed¡± by the military regime ¨C which ruled Burma between 1962 and 2011 ¨C as it feared gatherings of young people were ¡°dangerous¡± and would ¡°demand the fall of the government¡±, she added.

Ms Suu Kyi was speaking, via a specially pre-recorded video message, at a UK-Burma policy dialogue co-hosted by the British Council.

After elections were held in Burma in 2010, a nominally civilian government led by President Thein Sein - who served as a general and then prime minister under the junta - was installed in March 2011.

In 2012 two parliamentary committees were formed, each chaired by Ms Suu Kyi, who leads the opposition National League for Democracy, and tasked with drafting a new law on Burmese higher education, and specifically the revitalisation of the University of Yangon.

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In her address, Ms Suu Kyi , a University of Oxford graduate, said: ¡°The focus of the military government was on maintaining discipline, not on providing education.

¡°Now the standard of our university education has fallen so low that graduates have nothing except a photograph of their graduation ceremony to show for the years they spent at university.¡±

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Higher education reform was about ¡°much more than mere education. It is really part of our efforts to revitalise and reinvigorate our society,¡± she said.

She continued: ¡°We want to make our academic institutions independent. We want to make them vital and we want to modernise them to be in keeping with the developments of the times.

¡°The very first thing we need to do¡­is to recreate campus life. Our young people have not known campus life for decades¡­Starting with that, we want to provide them with the highest educational standards possible, not just in our region but in the whole world. We have to be ambitious.¡±

She appealed for help from British universities to aid education reform and help build ¡°a happier human society¡±.

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The policy dialogue was the culmination of a tour of Scottish and English universities by a Burmese delegation, organised by the British Council.

john.morgan@tsleducation.com