At the Social Science Curriculum Group Meeting at the end of last week, my main role was to participate in a working group looking at curriculum development for Myanmar’s nascent political science programme. In one form or another, this discipline was taught in Burma from 1920, when Rangoon University was formed, to 1962, when the Ne Win coup subjected universities to tight control. From 1962 to 1974, the Revolutionary Council dispensed with broad-based political science and promoted the teaching of socialism. From 1974 to 1988, socialism was made a compulsory course on all campuses. In both periods, the aim was clearly to brainwash through propaganda. In 1988, all universities were closed following mass pro-democracy protests led by students. When they were permitted to reopen in the 1990s, political science had no formal place in the curriculum.

In fact, though, some aspects of the broad discipline continued to be taught sporadically to masters students enrolled by departments of international relations formed in 1984 on the main Rangoon and Mandalay campuses. Subsequently, several other universities created in the 1990s were allowed to offer international relations courses or programmes to undergraduate students. Finally, in December 2013, the University of Yangon and Mandalay University were both given the green light to admit up to 50 students to each of 20 specified undergraduate programmes. Among them were separate programmes in international relations and political science. At both institutions, second cohorts will be enrolled in December.

Today, then, only UY and MU offer degrees in political science. With required matriculation scores of 470 out of 600, entrance to both programmes is extremely difficult and the resultant first-year cohorts, though small (in the mid-40s), are elite. These two universities also have parallel first-year cohorts in international relations (required matriculation score: 475). Overwhelmingly, students across these programmes are female.

Beyond the top two campuses, just a few other universities offer undergraduate degrees in international relations. In Lower Myanmar, focused on UY, they are Dagon University and East Yangon University. In Upper Myanmar, focused on MU, they are Monywa University and Yadanabon University (located in Amarapura, near Mandalay). At these universities, the cohorts are bigger: around 150 in East Yangon, for instance, and around 300 in Yadanabon. Finally, Yangon University of Foreign Languages and Mandalay University of Foreign Languages both teach a third-year international relations course, which though billed as elective is in fact mandatory. On each campus, lectures and tutorials are given separately to different language streams. At YUFL, the third-year cohort totals some 500 students taking eight languages.

Slowly, then, political science is being rebuilt in Myanmar. Indeed, to train up an outstanding corps of future political leaders and administrators, the government grants to the very best UY and MU students a stipend of roughly $100 a month, which is available for a total of nine years covering undergraduate, masters and doctoral studies. At MU, 14 political science majors and 28 international relations majors currently hold this award. Moreover, an idiosyncracy of the transitional period is that democracy has shifted, in the space of no more than a few years, from being a bad word to being a buzzword. When parliamentarians inquire into the shared political science curriculum being built at YU and MU, they make a point of ensuring that democracy is fully present. It’s all part of the new Myanmar.