By Joshua Carroll

YANGON

Student protesters defied authorities in Myanmar with another illegal rally Monday, marking the fourth and final day of demonstrations against a new education law.

An protest organizer told The Anadolu Agency that up to 500 demonstrators were expected to gather in central Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and former capital, to march against the National Education Law.

Opponents claim the law, signed into effect by President Thein Sein on Sept. 30, will stifle academic freedom.

“Myanmar’s governments have always tried to manipulate education,” Sai Khaing Myo Tun, a university lecturer who attended Sunday’s demonstration, told the AA. “The students believe they are not free to learn and to study and express their feelings about what they have studied.”

Student leader Win Moe Naing added: “In the 20th century students were the main force that instigated political change in Myanmar.That’s why the government is afraid of students.”

University students led a mass pro-democracy uprising against the military junta in 1988. Echoing that movement, hundreds gathered at the Shwedagon Pagoda over the weekend, the site where pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi made a rousing speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters 26 years ago.

Crowds marched around the 105 metre-high pagoda before holding a brief ceremony at a memorial honoring 11 students who boycotted a colonial university act in 1920.

The four days of protest came despite the government denying permission to hold the rallies, raising the risk of arrest for those taking part.

Friday’s demonstration coincided with U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Yangon.

The rallies saw protesters carrying bright red flags emblazoned with a golden fighting peacock, a national symbol. Many wore T-shirts depicting Suu Kyi’s father Aung San, a hero of Myanmar’s independence struggle.

The protest came after a two-day workshop organised by the All Burma Federation of Student’s Unions to examine the law, the Democratic Voice of Burma news website reported.

The demonstrations follow two protests over the past month over the death of journalist Par Gyi while in military custody on Oct. 4.

Myanmar’s education system, once envied by its neighbors, has been crippled by five decades of military rule, during which a huge portion of public funding was diverted to the army.

The new law provides for the creation of a National Education Commission, which civil society organisations believe will keep the education sector under tight government control.

After the nominally civilian government came to power in 2011 there were hopes of reform but the students fear the new law will leave the door open to continued political interference in the education system.

www.aa.com.tr/en