CSU initiates Salai Tin Maung Oo memorial education centre

Ngunte
Mizzima News: 2 August, 2006

New Delhi: In memory of Burma's first student Martyr, Salai Tin Maung Oo, the Chin Students' Union is set to open an education centre to provide free tuition to Burmese refugee children in New Delhi.

Lal Rem Sanga, president of the CSU told Mizzima, "Salai Tin Maung Oo was awarded the death sentence by the junta before he could complete his studies in the university. In the same way Burmese refugee children are unable to attend schools and afford tuitions because of lack of money."

"So the CSU is taking this initiative to start free tuition classes in memory of Salai Tin Maung Oo."

Salai Tin Maung Oo, who led the Rangoon University students during the 1974 U Thant's funeral uprising and the 1975 Shwe Dagon strike, was arrested and hanged secretly inside Rangoon's infamous Insein prison in 1976.

'Salai Tin Maung Oo Memorial Education Centre,' which is to commence from August, will impart free tuitions on Mathematics, Science and English to children of class VII to XII, said Sanga. In the future the centre will add Burmese to the curriculum, he added.

The education centre will be run by donations collected from various Burmese organisations and the Burmese community. And the students will be taught by volunteer members of the CSU, who have graduated in various streams, with out any fees, added Sanga.

According to NGO records of the 1,800 Burmese refugees living in New Delhi, approximately 1,400 were registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which provides monthly financial assistance in the form of 'Subsistence Allowance.'

But with the introduction of the SA phase out programme, in which the monthly allowances are slowly being phased out, in 2003 Burmese refugees were faced with the need to survive and many could no longer afford to send their children to school.