Female basic education teachers from the rural areas are not in a safe condition, said Zar Zar Aung, the senior assistant teacher from the Central Working Committee for the Formation of Basic Education Staff Union, said a paper-reading session to observe the World’s Teacher Day held in Yangon University on October 5.

Female teachers from the rural areas have to experience violence, sexual harassments, unfair accusations and verbal and physical insults.

“Of civil servants, staff from health and education sectors has to perform their duties in the remote and rural areas. Due to the unbalanced ratio between male and female teachers, female teachers have to perform their duties in the rural areas. They have to unavoidably experiences insecurity,” she added.

The Central Working Committee has suggested the facts such as the enactment of law and procedures pertaining to the prevention of violence against all women including teachers, the effective implementation of the law, effective action after the basic education department at the education ministry sets up a special hotline, opens the complaint centers and an e-mail, the construction of safe staff quarters for teachers and extension of the educative program and capacity building program.

The central working committee will conduct a nationwide survey on insecure conditions of female teachers in the rural areas.

According to the National Education Strategic Plan (2016-2021), there were 47,363 basic education schools and 340,955 teachers in 2015-2016. Now the number of basic education teachers has reached over 400,000 nationwide. The ratio between female and male teachers is 97:3