ရန်ကုန်ကောလိပ် ကျောင်းအုပ်ကြီး Principal, Rangoon College
1918 ပညာရေးအဖွဲ့ ရဲ့ Vice Chairman
အားကစား / ဘော်လုံး — အားပေး Sports / Soccer
ကျောင်းသား များ က ချစ်ခင်လေးစား Appreciated by students 1920 သပိတ်မှောက် ကျောင်းသားများ က ကန်တော့ တောင်းပန် RU Strike Students sincerely told him that there was nothing personal about the boycott 1923 အင်္ဂလန် ပြန် — နှုတ်ဆက် မျက်ရည် ကျ He shed tears during the farewell to move back to England in 1923
1917 – 1922 ဥက္ကဌ၊ Burma Research Society — President
Matthew Hunter Gold Medal ရွှေတံဆိပ်
စည်းကမ်းကြီး Disciplinarian
ကိုဘသန်း (နောင် Dr. ဘသန်း) နဲ့ ကိုကျော်မြင့် (First in Burma; နောင် ဝတ်လုံတော်ရ ဦးကျော်မြင့်) တို့ကို Calcutta တက္ကသိုလ် က စစ် တဲ့ ဆေးပညာ သင်ခွင့် စာမေးပွဲကို ဖြေခိုင်း။ He chose Ko Ba Than and Ko Kyaw Myint to take the examination by Calcutta University to study medicine.
ကိုကျော်မြင့် က မိခင်စျာပန တက်ရောက်ခွင့်တောင်း။ ဆရာ က ခွင့်မပြု။ ကိုကျော်မြင့် က စျာပန တက် လို့ ကျောင်းထုတ်ခံရ။ Ko Kyaw Myint asked permission to attend his mother’s funeral. Saya refused. Ko Kyaw Myint attended the funeral. He was expelled.
—-
မာ့က် ဟန်တာ Mark Hunter
Sir John Mark Somers Hunter (1865 – 1932)
အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ / စာပေ ဆရာ & စာအုပ်ပြုစု သူ Author of Texts on English Literature
Director of Coimbatore College, Professor of Presidency College, Madras, India
1918 ပညာရေးအဖွဲ့ ရဲ့ Chairman
1918 -1920 Professor, Government College, Rangoon, Burma
ပညာမင်းကြီး Director of Public Instruction
1920 RU Act ရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ် အက် ဥပဒေ ကိုအဆိုပြု
ကျောင်းသား များ နဲ့ ထိတ်တိုက်တွေ့ RU students staged a Strike to protest the 1920 RU Act
During our school days we had to learn World History (Feudal system, Renaissance) and Burmese History (called “Yazawin”and renamed as “Thamaing”).
Later, after hearing from the Thin sayas, Myin sayas, and Kyar sayas, I became interested in some aspects of history : History of computers and computing, History of Myanmar Engineering Education, “Truth or fiction?” about historical events, …
Burmese History
After the first Anglo-Burmese war (in 1824), the British annexed Rakkhine (Arakan) and Tennasserim (Taninthayee).
After the second war (in 1852), the British annexed Lower Burma.
After the third war (in 1885), the British annexed Upper Burma. Burma became a British Colony.
For some time, the British Governors would base their office in India and rule both India and Burma.
ICS (Indian Civil Service) examinations were held in India and UK. It was succeeded by BCS (Burma Civil Service).
Formal history of Burma has been written by British scholars (Harvey, Luce, …) and later by native scholars (Dr. Kyaw Thet, Dr. Than Tun, Bohmu Ba Shin …).
Informal accounts of Burma can be found in the works by Indians (Tagore, …), British (Maurice Collis, George Orwell, …) and Burmese (Dr. Htin Aung, U Po Kyar, …).
The conventional wisdom is that our neighbors entered the country in three phases.
Burmese archeologists and geologists found “ancient sites and quite old fossils and bones” to indicate that there were early inhabitants, but they could not completely counter the “migration theory” proposed by the British historians.
Pyu is an ancient civilization, and some Pyu sites are “preserved” as UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites.
Dr. Than Tun
Some sayings
History repeats itself.
We should learn history so that we may not be stupid or dumb.
There is usually no single correct history. Often there are parallel, competing histories.
“Pazat Yazawin” and “theories” should be evaluated with the help of kyauk sar (stone inscriptions).
Even in the peer-to-peer refereed papers, there are discrepancies and [unintentional] errors.
National Archive, Burmese History Commission, and Burma Research Society used to hold artifacts about Burmese History.
He was struck by a baton on December 20, 1938 during the third RU student boycott. He is an early casualty in the struggle for Burma’s independence. He was named “Bo Aung Kyaw”. Sparks Street was renamed as Bo Aung Kyaw Street. December 20 is known as “Bo Aung Kyaw Nay”.
Ko Harry Tan
He was a Seventh Student from SPHS. He was hit by a stray bullet. In 1956, there was a leakage of the Government Seventh Standard examination causing a protest close to Ko Harry’s house. All those who took the “Harry Tan Khun Hnit Tan” were declared to pass.
Ko Aung Khin
He was on his way back from RUBC (Rangoon University Boat Club) to his house in Windermere Road when he was hit by a stray bullet. He was listed in the Government newspapers as the 17th casualty of 7th July 1962.
Ko Phone Maw
He was hit by a stray bullet on March 13, 1988. Ko Soe Naing and Ko Myint Oo were also hit and hospitalized in not-so-humane conditions. Ko Soe Naing succumbed to the gun shot wounds. Ko Myint Oo survived. The “Burma Human Rights Day” and “Phone Maw and Soe Naing Nay” became milestones in Burma’s history.
He served as Professor of Mathematics and Dean of Arts at Rangoon University. Saya wrote notes for Burmese songs. His spouse Daw May Than was a vocalist. His son Ko Mya Than played the guitar and the piano.
U Kar
He served as Minister of Education in the Care Taker Government, and later as Rector of RU. His son Dr. Tin Maung served as Mathematics Lecturer, Director of UCC, and Rector of ICST.
U Ba Toke
He served as Professor (of RU and RIT), Rector, MASU. Saya taught mathematics to our sayas (then engineering students). As a saya of our sayas, Sayagyi was invited to the SPZP’s starting with SPZP-2000 held in California, US. His life and journey can be read in the book authored by Saya Dr. Khin Maung Swe (Maung Thin Char, GBNF).
Book
U Net
He served as Professor of Mandalay University. His daughter (Daw Khin Mar Mar) studied Physics and Computer Science. His grandson (U Wunna Ko Ko) designed and implemented the second RIt web site. He is an expert on NLP (Natural Language Processing).
Dr. Chit Swe
He served as Professor, Founder-Director of UCC, and Rector, RASU. Saya founded UCC with the help of Saya U Soe Paing, Saya U Myo Min, and Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF, brother of U Than Htut (M67, RUBC Gold)). Saya U Soe Paing wrote “Computer Ah Sa UCC Ga” and several articles. I posted 40+ blogs on “Memories of UCC”.
As an assistant to Dr. Chit Swe in his projects (e.g. “High School Mathematics”, “Children’s Treasury of Knowledge”, “UCC”, … I worked with several Mathematics sayas and educators (Maths curriculum, …) They include U Tin Hlaing, U Sein Min (GBNF), Dr. Khin Maung Win (GBNF), Dr. Khin Maung Swe (GBNF), Dr. Pyke Tin, Dr. Kyaw Thein (GBNF), Dr. Saw Tin (GBNF), and Dr. Kyaw Nyunt.
Mathematics is central to several other disciplines (Engineering, Physics, Economics, and Computer Science).
The Lucasian Professorship and Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University has been held by Sir Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawkings.
John Nash (Mathematician”, “A Beautiful Mind”) won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
RU had a Chancellor (Adipati) and a Vice Chancellor.
After independence, the Prime Minister of the Union of Burma served as the Chancellor. He would attend the Convocation and give a speech.
The road leading to the Convocation Hall is named Chancellor Road.
Justice U Bo Gyi served as Vice Chancellor for two terms.
A senior Saya (e.g. U Hla Aung, L. Htin Si) served as a Bursar or Registrar
Faculties
RU had several Faculties :
Science
Arts
Social Science
Engineering
Law
Medicine
…
Early Scholars and Sayas
Dr. Tha Hla, Dr. Maung Maung Kha, and Dr. Hla Myint were among the early scholars sent to UK to study for their doctorates. They later headed Geology, Physics and Economics Departments.
Saya U Ba Hli was the first native Dean of Engineering. He studied in India and UK. He served as Principal and Civil Professor at GTI before he transferred to RU.
Saya U Ba Hli is credited with the “Twinning Program” with prestigious universities in the US. Beneficiaries of the program include engineering students (Dr. Aung Gyi, U Min Wun, U Maung Maung Than, U Aung Khin, U Khin Aung Kyi, U Thit, U Soe Paing, U Ko Ko Lay …), sayas (U Sein Hlaing, U Tin Swe, U Allen Htay, Dr. San Hla Aung, U Htin Paw, U San Tun, U Tin Hlaing … ), and eligible graduates (U Aw Taik Moh …).
U Yone Mo studied Honors at RU and engineering in UK. At that time, membership and associate membership of the engineering societies were valued for non-academic positions and jobs.
In contrast, a Masters Degree is usually needed to become a Lecturer.
Some sayas did a second round of studies to complete their Masters and get promoted to Lecturers.
In the early days, there was a Pali Department, but no Burmese Department.
Saya U Pe Maung Tin (Pali) proposed and succeeded in the founding of the Burmese Department at RU. His students : ICS U Sein Tin (Theikpan Maung Wa), U Thein Han (Zawgyi) and U Wun (Minthuwun) spearheaded the “Khit San Sar Pay”. We had to study the works of all four in high school (and beyond).
Minthuwun’s poems and his classic short story (Bagyi Aung Nyar De) were translated into English by U Ohn Pe (Tet Toe), U Khin Zaw (“K) and fellow scholars,
and the collection was published in both Burmese and English.
U Pe Maung Tin, U Aye Maung, and U Wun, served as Professor of Burmese Department.
U Myo Min (Nwe Soe, Professor of English) was also involved in the Khit San Sar Pay.
Details of the early departments and pioneer sayas can be found in the RU Golden Jubilee Magazine, the 90th Anniversary Issues and the RU Centennial publications.
HlaMin 