LPCM

Opening devotion was led by Daw San San Aung Director of Christian Education, Myanmar Baptist Convention, based on Phi 3:8-9, and the closing service was led by Saw Shwe Lin (Executive Secretary of the SCM). The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Saw Mar Gay Gyi, the Acting General Secretary of the Myanmar Council of Churches.
Rev. Thang Tin Sum, the Coordinator of LPCM presented a brief history of the literacy programs of Myanmar Council of Churches into two phases.
Some suggestions of the evaluation and the assessment.
1. Literacy campaign should be conducted as much as possible to bring down illiteracy rate.
2. More number of booklets and pamphlet on basic educational materials should be published to give the participants more knowledge and education through literature.
3. More skill workshops to be conducted for longer period.
5. To avoid overlapping programs, small scale development program should be carried out by development desk of the MCC.
After the Coordinators report some feed back and inputs were given as follow;

1 Inputs
In response to the coordinator’s report, there were inputs and feedback from different angles. Some of them are MCC officers and some are outside of MCC.
Mr Thawng Bik is a local Environmental Activist. He is founder of Green Eden Project, and share about “Ecological concerns and literacy”.
Mr. Thawng Bik presented the relativity of literacy and ecological awareness in response to the report of the Coordinator. He said that: literacy should be an inclusive meaning to the livelihood of individuals in the community because sustainability of a rural community is seriously threatened by ecological degradation. Therefore, it is wise to produce teaching aids publications for the literacy should be based on the ecological awareness lessons. Preservation of forests and a sustainable development concept should be imparted to the rural population along with literacy campaigns.
There are some Non Government Organizations like “World concerns” who has an eco-desk to deal with literacy and ecology. So it is advisable that collaboration and cooperation with such organization will be very helpful for improving their livelihood.
The Green Eden Project for Ecology had been founded in 2004 in response to the ecological crises in Chin State. The ecological campaign team of Green Eden imparted the awareness of ecology through dramas on the itinerant trips in the region and it is found to be well accepted in the rural communities.

Dr. Thuam Cin Khai is an education expertise, currently serves as Academic Dean of ANTS (All Nations Theological Seminary). He presented a paper on the challenges of literacy in the context of Myanmar from education perspectives in response to the evaluation report of the coordinator. He said that mass eradication of literacy had been conducted after the independence in 1948. Myanmar won two literacy prizes; Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Literacy Prize in 1971 and the Noma Prize in 1983 as to acknowledge the success of the movement.
But the literacy rate decline since 1988 especially after 1990 because the education system deteriorated in various ways. Drop out rate became very high in the first five years at school because education no longer assured for a good job or a good living. And another reason for declining literacy rate is due to the prohibition of teaching literature of the ethnic minorities. Promotion and preservation of each ethnic language is an essential part of their social existence and cultural identity that cultural manipulation or domination from outside the community is not a desirable phenomenon.
Dr. Khai stressed that to be very intelligent by oneself is not a very good predictor of success or efficiency in job performance but literacy must be a basic task of all. He compared IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Intelligence).
He said that EQ is more predictive for a good life and SQ known as Spiritual Intelligent is essential for a total human being, contentment in life. In other words the wholeness of life or the abundant life of an individual needs to have Spiritual Intelligence so that a purpose as well as a value driven life may be obtained.
Dr. Thuam Cin Khai suggested two education systems to help improve literacy for the cultural minorities.
(1) Community Based Education System: - He is cautious that education must not be in the form of relief. It must be community oriented and community initiative that genuine development of literacy will be achieved. It is a purposeful value driven life. It also has to fulfill their needs both physically and spiritually. Community Based Education System may be appropriate for the community in which individuals belong to different denominations or religions.
(2) Church Based Education System: - State run Education System does not support the literacy promotion of the culture minorities because curriculums and syllabus have been written in Burmese except English. Further, the education system of the state school experience a lot of changes that experimental period seems to be never end. The results of such unstable education system always made the teachers unfamiliar with courses that quality of instruction usually fall short of standard. Church based education may need to train qualified educators / teachers to overcome shortage of teachers .The education being imparted to the students in their own language and in the 2nd language may help to solve issues of their daily life. Both physical needs and spiritual needs may be met that a purposeful education will be obtained.
Rev. Raymond Pome Za Lyan is the Secretary of Communication department, Myanmar Council of Churches. He presented the challenges of the literacy today from communication perspectives today, in response to the evaluation report of Rev. Thang Tin Sum. He said that literacy in this postmodern era does not confine to reading and writing in a particular language and dialect but literacy includes Media Literacy, Critical Literacy, Technacy, Visual Literacy, Computer Literacy, Multimedia Literacy, Information Literacy, Health Literacy and Digital Literacy became very important for those who seek intellectual careers.
New innovations of technology made the communication a wonderful tool in every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately wider gaps between the urban population and rural population emerged due to the creation of a variety of features in literacy in this postmodern era. Such a big gap between the intellectual and illiterates is not a desirable phenomenon in the society because exploitation and abuses of the weaker section of the society by the rich, powerful and highly literate people is inescapable.
Therefore the gap between the urban population and rural communities need to be redressed for building a healthy society. It is essential to build infrastructures like community media centers that the rural population will have opportunities to assess postmodern literacy.
Basic literacy known as the ability to read and to write is still relevant in our Society today. But it is said to have no longer sufficient for a good performance on jobs. Many people access the internet which is a very rich resource for those who want to acquire knowledge and gradually wealth while many people have been left out. And it is much easier to provide community based access centers than those of the people in urban areas. Providing communication infrastructure like wireless Local Area Network may help the whole community to access the internet with a variety of information and communication features.
Community may be able to use the Content Management System (CMS) and host their own websites that exchanging of information will be possible and instant messaging online and forum will help develop their ability to read and to write and to understand their identity in the world. Community based multimedia libraries have been introduced by the government in recent years though how do these libraries function is not known. Creating community based media centers can be the most appropriate means for promoting every aspect of literacy.
Some of the suggestions for literacy promotion among the rural population are as follows:
(1) Production of VCD teaching aids with subtitle in their vernacular language that they may be motivated to read and understand the contents.
(2) Further, computer based video editing should be taught that they may have their own records and production.
(3) Web hosting: - There are several web designs and templates for free. For eg. “Joomla” can be customized for free and host a community own website with a very minimum rate of charges for domain name and data server. Literacy promotion for reading and writing may be promoted by having email group that exchanging news in their interest and use of the language. It is already experienced by some of the ethnic tribes of the Chin people (e.g. SizangNet@yahoogroups.com )
(4) Another feature of literacy promotion to response the challenges are to develop software for learning in indigenous language. Good examples of such software can be explored in English language learning software CD-ROM. Those CD-ROM may be used for samples and develop their own CD-ROM. Grammar and dictionary in electronic version may be developed for literacy promotion.

Mr George Shey, the executive Secretary of the Service and Development Department mentioned about participatory program in which each of the participants of the program shares his or her ideas that everyone is teaching something while learning a subject:
The Participatory Action Research (PAR) has been a very successful system in development and it can be adapted to use for literacy program. It is obvious that literacy is an essential part of development and development programs can also help promote literacy vise versa.
Nelson Siang Awr is the Associate Director of Myanmar Ecumenical Institute. He emphasized the threat of language extinction that it is in danger of extinction of languages of cultural minorities in Myanmar. Therefore he highlighted that the Churches in Myanmar has a great responsibility to promote cultures and literatures of the minority apart from the spiritual care.
There were three main presentations at the evaluation seminar, focused on the Challenges of Literacy need in Myanmar, Workshop Plan for Literacy projects and MCC guidelines on the Literacy promotions activities.
Rev Khoi Lam Thang, Linguistic Expertise and Translation Officer of Bible Society of Myanmar presented the Challenges of Literacy in Myanmar. He presented on the definitions of literacy referring to the declaration of UNESCO 1960, Bhola 1994; UNESCO 1990, UNESCO: Malone 1994, Bhola1993) that literacy is the ability to read and to write in his/her mother language. And literacy is the basic human right and illiteracy must be eradicated from this world.
Further, literacy is closely related to the liberation from the bondage or oppression. Finally literacy is a means for every single human being towards an abundant life.
Literacy rate of Myanmar have been progressing dramatically according to the statistic mentioned by the government. For example, in 1963 only 57% were literate and in 1988 - 79.7% in 2000 - 91% and in 2007 - 94.75%. But the literacy rate being counted is in Burmese the national language only. On the other hand, Literacy promotion for Cultural minorities has been ignored by the government since more than 45 years ago. The government’s Burmanization or
Assimilation policy creates degradation of vernacular education as well as literacy promotion movement for minority groups. As a result, most ethnic groups need orthography development in their languages. The government recognized 135 national races in Myanmar.
As of the language vitality is concerned, there are at least three levels of language vitality such as: Living Language, Moribund and Extinct Language. Now a day, cultural values and identity of the ethnic groups are dangerously threatened in Myanmar. Young people can not read and write their mother tongue. Education was introduced to children in their second language. The vitality of minority languages can be categories as Living languages. They are not totally used for mass media. People only use their mother tongue at home and at religious Ceremonies. They are at the state of Moribund and can be even identified as Endangered Languages.
To a certain extent, literacy promotion activities are being carried out by the churches for very few language groups. However, the literacy promotion is not sustainable due to lack of literacy continuation program as well as need of financial support. The challenge is great. Demands are many. Program should be evaluated and necessary changes should be implemented for practical and effective result. The former existing literacy programs in the past should be retained for some group, but there should be up-grated literacy program for sustainable movement. UN declares “Decade of Literacy” and at the same time this year is “UN Year of Language”. It is the right time to introduce new literacy projects for minorities. Thus,¬
(1) There should be Basic level Literacy Program, for cultural minority group of which is trying to develop orthography and elementary Primer book. This stage will concentrate on 3R, and aim is to teach how to read and write in their heart language. (For example: Hawa Naga).
(2) There should be another advanced stage of sustainable literacy Promotion. The beneficial group for this stage of project will be the language groups which have more stable writing system and had been conducted basic literacy programs in the past. (E.g. Jingphaw). More additional teaching materials should be provided for this project.
In other wards, a lot of modifications and developments on literacy promotion program is necessary for today generation. Literacy must be one of the vital sources for holistic development by applying their skill as functional literacy.
Naw Chee Po is a literacy expertise from SIL. She and her group presented a practical approach of workshop plan for Minority Language Groups.
She explained on how important it is to have a preliminary research when one is intended to implement Workshop plan for Minority Language Group.
The researcher must be very careful to observe the nature and culture of the particular ethnic group that the choice of scripts for their mother tongue must be appropriated.
Organizing people to be a group of resource persons is also important for the workshop. Program Planning, Writers Workshop, Premier Development Workshop, Teacher training Workshop I literacy Material Production Workshop, Teacher training Workshop II, Training to Trainer Workshop program planning and Management workshop etc.
Naw Tar Bwe presented two tracks method for developing first language namely Story Track and Primer Track and four stages of primer such as learning to read, gaining fluency, bridging to another language and life-long reading etc.
She explained on how important it is to have a preliminary research when one is intended to implement Workshop plan for Minority Language Group.
The researcher must be very careful to observe the nature and culture of the particular ethnic group that the choice of scripts for their mother tongue must be appropriated.
Organizing people to be a group of resource persons is also important for the workshop. Program Planning, Writers Workshop, Premier Development Workshop, Teacher training Workshop I literacy Material Production Workshop, Teacher training Workshop II, Training to Trainer Workshop program planning and Management workshop etc.
Naw Tar Bwe presented two tracks method for developing first language namely Story Track and Primer Track and four stages of primer such as learning to read, gaining fluency, bridging to another language and life-long reading e
Saw Moo Ler presented about the language development and requirement for sustainability by Susan Malone 2003. He added that the government of India has supported over 2000 institutions in their mother languages while as we have none in this country.
Rev Saw Mar Gay Gyi is Acting General Secretary of Myanmar Council of Churches. He presented the expectation of this evaluation Seminar which is to set a new and effective strategic planning for the Literacy Program for Cultural Minorities. Myanmar Council of Churches has accomplished a certain level of literacy promotion in the past. Therefore the following facts and expectation are presented to the Seminar.

Vision and Mission
Vision:
The churches striving to be relevant in Myanmar context, we are called to work together in unity for God’s ministry in the world: serving so that all people may have a full and abundant life.
Mission:
The Myanmar Council of Churches is an ecumenical body formed by the churches in Myanmar. Through this body, all churches and church based organizations become one in working together for greater spirituality, holistic, reconciliation, peace, justice, promotion of human dignity, gender equality and Christian service and witness, and also encourage all religions to join hands together in love. We commit ourselves to mutual recognition of differences in faith and practice; empowerment; dialogue; the sharing of local and international resources; partnerships; and coordination.
Then he also outline the important task and the obligation of the churches to promote the literacy programme for cultural minorities in Myanmar as follow;
The government has done a great extent of literacy movement for the Burmese language which is the majority of all the races of Myanmar national. But there is no support for other national races which are over 200 languages being spoken in this country. Therefore, the cultural minorities have the obligation to promote their mother languages by implementing Basic Literacy Programs for those who do not have scripts and an advanced literacy program for those who have literature being needed to make them a living language.
Therefore, it is indispensable to make clear cut planning and strategies for the up coming literacy program in response to the challenges of the 21st century.