ABSTRACT
For the backwardness of Burmans in non-agricultural activities education was commonly regarded as the remedy. During the sixties, when the Government of India was concerned to promote education, Sir Arthur Phayre was directed to submit a plan of public instruction for Burma. Upto 1918 Burma had produced only 400 graduates, including many non-Burmans. When Lord Curzon formulated a new educational policy, conditions in Burma were very different from those in India. In Burma the new educational programme could be drawn up on a blank sheet. The medical school, opened in 1907, provided for the training of medical subordinates, and the closure of the engineering school to non-domiciled students in 1913 encouraged Burmans to train for subordinate appointments in the Public Works Department, but up to the end of executive rule in 1923 men still had to go to India to become a doctor or an engineer and for neither was there an effective demand.
