December 1920

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

There were three significant events.

• Establishment of RU
• First RU Students’ Strike
• Birth of U Ba Toke

Rangoon University

On December 1, 1920, Rangoon University was established with Rangoon College and Judson College as its constituents. There were only three Faculties : Arts, Science, and Law.

RU later extended its offerings. The opening of engineering classes was planned around 1923 and executed in 1924.

In 1927, the first batch of engineering students (who had Bachelors degree) graduated with the “accelerated courses” option.

In 1928, the second batch of engineering students (who joined after finishing the I.Sc.) graduated.

RU celebrated the Golden Jubilee in 1970.

Dr. Aung Gyi (Professor of Civil Engineering) and U Thet Lwin (Burmese saya at the Institute of Economics) were GJ organizers.

The term “Swel Daw Yeik” became synonymous with RIT, its predecessors and successors.

Swel Daw Yeik Ah Nyeint (စွယ်တော်ရိပ် အငြိမ့်), Htee Yein (ထီးယိမ်း) & Tabin Daing Ah Ka (တပင်တိုင်အက) were hits at the GJ celebration.

First RU Students’ Strike

On December 5, 1920, several students led the Boycott of the Rangoon University Act of 1920.

The boycott was responsible for the amendments to the RU Act.

A pillar was set up on Shwe Dagon Pagoda in memory of the Boycott.

The event is honored as National Day (Amyotha Aung Pwe Nay အမျိုးသားအောင်ပွဲနေ့) . The Burmese date & not December 5th is used for the celebrations.

National Schools (Amyotha Kyaung အမျိုးသားကျောင်း) were opened. U Po Kyar, Arzani U Razak, U Nu and U Thant are notable sayas from the National Schools.

U Ba Toke

He was born on December 26, 1920.

He is one of the oldest and senior sayas associated with the engineering schools in Burma.

Even though RU was closed during the Japanese Occupation, he completed his M.Sc. and taught at the make-shift classes on Mogul (Shwe Bon Tha street ရွှေဘုံသာ လမ်း) .

He served as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and Professor of Maths at RU and RASU.

He was promoted to Rector, MASU. After some time, he volunteered to relocate to RIT as Professor of Maths.

As a Saya of engineering sayas, he was invited to attend SPZP-2000 and give a speech.

He attended all SPZPs except SPZP-2002 (which he had to forgo due to Sayagadaw’s health and demise).

He played Chinlon and Soccer in his University days.

He headed the Burmese delegation to the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 1964.

He served as Commandant of the Luyechun Camp.

Until his 80s, he was active (e.g. walk to Shwe Dagon Pagoda with his dhamma friends).

In his 90’s, he had physical limitations, but his mental faculty remained.

He passed away on December 2, 2020 — the day after the RU Centennial. It was a few days short of his Centennial birthday.