By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar

For hundreds of years, monks have provided a valuable service to Myanmar's poor, with the country's monastic education schools granting those from underprivileged families of all religions an education they would normally be unable to afford.

However observers are concerned that a new school opened by a firebrand group of nationalist monks may be used to encourage hatred of other religions, such as Islam, rather than a straightforward adherence to Buddhism.

Talking to a local newspaper last week, nationalist monk Wirathu -- a prominent member of the Organization for Protection of Race and Religion (Ma Ba Tha) -- underlined that all monastic schools (commonly known as Ba Ka schools) and government schools should not just emphasize the teachings of the country's majority religion, but also seek to protect them.

“Buddhists should learn how to protect race and religion from childhood... That’s why we, Ma Ba Tha, open the private school to provide free education and religious teaching to poor children.”

Anti-Muslim rhetoric from the group -- in particular from Wirathu -- has been seen as deliberately stoking the flames of religious hatred against the country's Muslims, with Wirathu blaming them for communal conflicts, and accusing them of attempting to Islamize the country of 57 million people.

The group recently held protests to demand Aung San Suu Kyi's new National League for Democracy government implement harsh policies toward the country's minority Rohingya Muslims, and that foreign embassies refrain from using "Rohingya" to refer to the Muslim ethnicity, instead describing them as "Bengali", which suggests they are interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh.

Monastic schools backbone of education sector for all

The Ba Ka system dates back to the 11th century, and for hundreds of years it was the only source of education in the country.

During the five decades of military rule prior to the 2015 elections, the country's education sector was largely ignored, however monastic schools -- which the Ministry of Religious Affairs says number around 1,500 (an increase of 7 percent since 2010) -- allowed the literacy rate to remain at around 90 percent.

Although Buddhist monks operate Ba Ka schools, the government has decreed that the curriculum must be in accordance with its education syllabus, leaving some of the institutions offering the Buddha’s basic teaching and stories of his previous lives as additional, outside of the main curriculum.

The schools are widely seen as an innocent example of imparting religious values so future generations grow up with the same religious understanding or devotion as previous generations.

This may be about to change, however, with the advent of the new free private Ma Ba Tha school on the outskirts of Yangon, which has a clear focus on protecting Buddhist race and religion.

Mahaw Thadar, a Ba Ka school for Buddhists only

Around 150 Grade 9 (aged 14-16) children are reported to have enrolled at Mahaw Thadar High School in Hlegu Township for this academic year. The school will accept more students for Grades 10 and 11 next year, according to a report by Myanmar NOW magazine.

However, asked by Anadolu Agency about its relationship with Ma Ba Tha this week, school spokesperson Thurein Soe denied that the five-story school built on 5.7 acres of land was operated by the organization as a whole, but rather "just by one member" who had founded the school.

“The opening of this private school is not because of Ma Ba Tha’s instruction,” Thurein Soe said by phone. “It comes from Sayadaw’s dream to provide free education to poor children.”

Soe said that teaching is to follow the standard high school curriculum, but also include religious and literature programs taught by monks that will build children’s morals and Buddhist devotion.

“It is not something new and strange. Almost all schools in the country hold the religious ceremony occasionally,” Soe said. “I want to make clear that the school is not for religion at all.”

Soe underlined, however, that Mahaw Thadar High, unlike other Ba Ka schools, would only accept Buddhist students.

International concerns

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch expressed deep concern over the opening of the Ma Ba Tha school, saying it would have a negative impact on religious harmony in the country, where anti-Muslim sentiment has been on the rise since communal violence broke out between Rakhine Buddhist and Rohingya in mid-2012.

In an email to Anadolu Agency, Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson described Ma Ba Tha as “an organization that continuously generates hate speech against Muslims, and is widely suspected as having instigated past incidents of violence against Muslim communities”.

“So you can bet that there will be a healthy dose of Ma Ba Tha propaganda fed to these students, and school administrators will press these youths to take up the cause when they finish their studies,” Robertson added.

He called on the Ministry of Education to monitor the situation closely.

“There’s little doubt that the opening of this school will be bad news for the cause of inter-faith dialogue and respect for human rights,” he stated.

Ooyintaw, a Ba Ka school of mutual respect

Talking to Anadolu Agency this week, the abbot of Ooyintaw monastic school in Singaing Township in central Mandalay said he does not share the same policy as Mahaw Thadar High.

“We accept students of all different religions,” Ashin Magainda said, adding that the 50-year-old school is next to a big Muslim village, and 72 of the school's 350 students are Muslim.

“We do not teach them about religion,” he said by phone, adding that the school has Muslim and Christian teachers.

Muslim children are respectfully silent when Buddhist students worship before classes start in the morning, says Magainda, and after school they go for religious class at a local mosque.

Thein Lwin, the school's 69-year-old retired headmaster, says Muslims and Buddhists in the area have mutual respect.

“They have understood each other since childhood,” he said.