Chinese Educational Syndicate in Burma
(The Federation of Overseas Chinese Academies)

Before the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, there were already many Chinese schools in Rangoon. At the beginning, these schools were poorly equipped, the curriculum varied widely, and since most of them were set up by Chinese from different dialect groups separately, Mandarin, the official language was not the teaching language. Chinese Educational Syndicate in Burma was formed in 1908 to coordinate the efforts of the diverse management boards that were running nearly a hundred schools in Burma at that time. Grandfather Yeo Cheow Kaw was the founding President and stayed at the helm until Mr Zhang Yong Foo (1867 – 1942) took over. In the same period, similar professional education organisations were set up for the same purpose in other parts of Southeast Asia, including Jakarta, Penang, and Singapore.

Apart from educational activities run by the Syndicate, the history of the overseas Chinese in Myanmar also records the role of the Syndicate in a political dispute. That was in September 1913, when the pro-revolution newspaper, the progressive newspaper, was banned, and Yeo Cheow Kaw, being a member of the Sun Yat Sen’s League, bearing the name of the Syndicate, took over the printing machine to start another pro-revolution newspaper. Just as Yeo Cheow Kaw who founded Xiayang primary school in China in 1904, and took over the Teong Hwa in Rangoon in 1907, the other directors from the Syndicate like Zhang Yongfu, was a principal of Fujian Girls’ School in 1908, and Lim Chin Tsong, a director of the Anglo-Chinese school. They were all very successful Chinese merchants in Rangoon. The political incident actually proved that the Syndicate could make a strong influence in the Myanmar Chinese community.

Among the educational acitivities, holding joint sports competitions and academic achievement exhibitions encouraged healthy inter-school interactions. Running teacher training programmes with supporting education conferences helped to nurture local teachers and promote succession. These activities were common among Chinese schools in South-east Asia at the time. In fact, Rangoon and other bigger Chinese-populated cities like Jakarta, Penang and Singapore, were the forerunners in innovating such events. In 1901, the Overseas Chinese School in Jakarta adopted the reformed curricula – the first overseas Chinese school to do so. Yeo Cheow Kaw’s Teong Hwa Chinese School in Rangoon followed second. Joint sports competitions were organised in Singapore only after 1922, and in Bangkok, nearly 20 years after the Educational Syndicate ran its first in Rangoon，in 1913.

The Syndicate actively took guidance from the Ministry of Education in mainland China, often receiving visits by education officials from the late Qing / new Republic of government such as Sa Jun Lu and Huang Yanpei. The Syndicate had been actively cooperating with the development of education and striving to keep pace with the system and content implemented in the motherland. Behind the efforts, which promote interaction with other similar groups in Southeast Asia, laid the combined strength of these groups. This also reflects that these groups had always been in contact with one another and care for and support one another. In 1920, the Malayan Straits Settlements government announced a new Education Ordinance, to execute the School Registration Act, which led to legalising the termination of the office of school principals and teachers when deemed necessary. Delegates from Chinese schools in three Malayan states travelled to London to voice to the British government their protest against this new Act. The Burma Chinese Educational Syndicate hosted the delegates in Rangoon during their stopover in August, 1921.