by Hla Min
Update : 5th November 2026
Terms
- Base Pay : Used for calculating pension, etc.
- CLA : Cost of Living Allowance
- Pay Scale is specified as S – A – M where
S : Starting Salary
A : Annual Increment
M : Maximum Salary (also known as Bar)
Typical Pay Scales (six decades ago)
- Tutor or Demonstrator : 200 – 10 – 300
Typical CLA = 97
Starting pay is 200 + 97 = 297 Kyats
- Lecturing Tutor : Gets 100 Kyats additional;
Starting pay is 397 Kyats
- Assistant Lecturer (AL) : 350 – 25 – 700
Typical CLA = 89
Starting pay is 350 + 89 = 439 Kyats
- Lecturer : 800 – 50 – 1200
No CLA
Has access to staff shop
Can spend 10% of salary at the staff shop
- Professor: 1300
No Annual Increment
No CLA
Has access to “staff shop”
May be eligible for a house in the Campus
Changes
- CLA was abolished
- Tutor gets a Starting Salary of 320 Kyats
- Assistant Lecturer gets a Starting Salary of 450 Kyats
- New positions and/or scales were introduced
Examples:
- Gazetted officer: 450 scale & above
- Engineering Instructor: 450 – 25 – 700 [“new” position]
- Assistant Lecturer: 450 – 25 – 700 [“new” scale]
- Lecturer: 800 – 40 – 1000 [“new” scale]
- Associate Professor: 1000 – 50 – 1200 [“new” position]
- Professor : 1300 [“old” position and scale]
Observation
- A hybrid system (Professor, Associate Professor & Lecturer) was adopted instead of the more common system (Professor, Associate Professor & Assistant Professor)
- Some departments saw
Gyar scale: 500 – 30 – 800 [“new” scale] - It took longer to get promoted.
e.g. An Engineering Instructor needs to become Assistant Lecturer (with no visible increase in pay) before becoming Lecturer. - The pay raises due to a promotion were no longer substantial (especially with the high cost of living and the decline of the purchasing power of Kyat).
- Several sayas who were Lecturers (when I was a student) retired as Lecturers.
- Several sayas retired as Assistant Lecturers. In contrast, one saya became Associate Dean in Thailand.
