Much education in refugee camps, though, has been in English, with most teaching in mother tongues restricted to primary and vocational levels.  However teachers are now developing and adapting material and methods across the curriculum, financially supported by BEST and a patchwork of other donors.

Inevitably, it can be a skewed education – though one with benefits, as speaking English gives students the potential opportunity to study in international schools attached to universities in Asia and beyond. The need is urgent if Burma is to have skilled individuals to help it return to democracy when the dictatorship goes.

Contact for funders and for more information about the work of BEST:burmatrust@fastmail.fm  For students eager to get into university, however, there are still massive hurdles to overcome. Given their status, just getting the right paperwork can be extremely complex, as with no personal resources, students need to find sponsorship – and of the hundreds who applied to a range of scholarship organisations last year, 159 were successful. The rest had to put their ambitions on hold.

Last year, as well as funding supplementary scholarships to students studying in Thailand and the UK, with the generous support and help of UNISON, the Maitri Trust, the Richard Hua Trust and other organisations, BEST were able to provide 55 laptops for students studying at University and the Migrant Worker and Refugee Learning Centre in Chiang Mai.

This proved to be a complex logistically, but very worthwhile endeavour valued by the students and BEST is looking at ways of meeting these objectives again, albeit in an administratively simpler way in the future. The success of both scholarship support and provision of computers, can best be summed up by recent BEST graduate Mu Mu:

“On the graduation day, I was so happy while I was entering to the convocation hall of my university and while I was stepping to the stage to accept my graduation certificate. Do you know that my feeling on that time was so good and I was so proud of my study commitment while I was entering to that hall, even though I was so tired during my four years study, all my tiredness was gone away while I was entering that hall together with my classmates.

Without BEST’s support, I may not know how's this kind of feeling is good and proud. Only with your support, I got a chance to see what the convocation ceremony is for a student.

On my certificate, I got brown golden colour coin due to high grade (3.27) and my certificate was so different with other students. Why I win this kind of special brown golden coin at my convocation certificate is related with BEST. While my main scholarship is not enough for my study, while I was so worry for my financial problem during my study, BEST supported me partial scholarship in order to wipe out some university costs. Beside, with kindly understanding, BEST supported me again with a computer which helped my studies greatly and I can't find words to say you thank you.”