Salary

by Hla Min

Updated : May 2025

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.