IDEALISM AND PRAGMATISM: A dilemma in the current monastic education systems of Burma and Thailand

In Burma, the highest ecclesiastical body, the State Sangha Maha¯na¯yaka Committee, wrote in its Education Report of 1981 that,

. . . . . due to the current education system, although it is not possible to say that the efforts and intelligence of the monks and novices, who are sons of the people, are fruitless, it is, however, clear that, despite their invested effort and intelligence, the end-result is a minus, not a plus.1