Students from several areas will have to resit matriculation exams that they have already taken because their answer papers were destroyed by the earthquake before being marked.
According to a 22 April 2025 statement by the junta, students who had taken their matriculation exams at centres in Kachin State, Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, and the capital Naypyidaw have been affected. They face the nightmare of having to retake exams they thought they had completed, meaning that they will have to again revise and relearn information that they had believed they could forget.
They will have to do this because their unmarked exam papers were being kept at Mandalay University and were destroyed when the university’s main building was engulfed in flames following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Myanmar on 28 March 2025 and had its epicentre about 16km (9.9 miles) west of Mandalay City.
According to the junta statement, students whose answer sheets were destroyed will be required to retake the exam between 16 and 21 June and to do so they must enrol at the relevant exam centre between 1 and 15 June.
Students originally sat the matriculation exams in March and believed that they had completed their exams and could forget about them. Because of this and because many of those who are required to take resits also live in areas badly affected by the earthquake, they are unlikely to have retained the information needed to pass their exams again, three months after they took them. They have had more pressing concerns on their minds since then.
A teenage girl from Kachin State who had already taken the matriculation exam said: “We thought the junta wouldn’t make students retake the exam, especially with so many people suffering from the natural disaster. Before the announcement, there were so many different reports about whether or not the exam would be retaken, so we were unsure whether we should start studying again. Now, we have to restudy.”
Sagaing, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw were among the areas hardest hit by the earthquake and the junta’s plan to hold new exams for students in these regions has drawn increasing criticism from the public, as many of the students are still struggling in the aftermath of the disaster.
Many houses have collapsed, leaving people in the disaster zones struggling to rebuild. With the junta failing to provide effective assistance, communities have been relying on their own efforts or support from civil society organisations to carry out relief work.
This has meant that many students who took the matriculation exam are suffering from from stress and helping their families and communities recover. As a private school teacher pointed out, In such dire conditions students will be unable to concentrate on preparing for another exam.
He said: “I think it would make more sense to just declare all students as having passed. There’s no need to heap more stress onto students who are already dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake. Honestly, the junta’s statement left me speechless. If it really has to hold the exams again, then it should at least give an option—like letting only the students who are aiming for distinctions retake it, and passing the rest.”
According to the junta statement, a total of 62,954 students who sat the 2024–25 matriculation exam will have to retake the exam because their unmarked papers were lost in the fire. Of those, 8,699 are from Kachin State, 46,944 are from Mandalay Region and the capital Naypyidaw and 7,311 are from Sagaing Region.
The 28 March earthquake caused widespread damage to homes, religious buildings, infrastructure, and historical monuments across Sagaing and Mandalay regions, as well as the capital Naypyidaw and other parts of Myanmar. The death toll has now surpassed 4,000.
