Pu Taw Junior College,
Mae La Refugee Camp
Pu Taw is a college situated within the Mae La Refugee camp. Over the years, MEP has worked with the pupils, preparing them for the Cambridge English exam.
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We had found from previous experience that students coming directly from the camp to Mae Sot found the experience disorientating, as this may have been the first time they had left the camp. This gave them some experience of living outside the camp before they sat the exam.
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A great deal of time, effort, funding and organisation was required for these exams to take place, but it gave the students their first internationally recognised educational certificate.​​
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We have been supported in this work by Harrow International School, paying for exam fees and funding an orientation weekend with students from both schools meeting for a weekend in Mae Sot.
MEP was delighted that 2024 saw our return to Mae La refugee camp to deliver a KEY Cambridge course to 24 camp residents at Pu Taw Memorial College, where we had worked for about 10 years until the outbreak of COVID. PTMJC is a specialist educational college for Karen youth, training to work in the Karen education system. It provides a four-year course with English as the main medium for the final two years.
Since the COVID pandemic and due to security concerns following the worsening situation across the border in Myanmar, access to the camp, particularly for smaller organisations and foreign staff, has remained restricted. However, after continuing to seek a solution to the issue of camp access, we partnered up with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to deliver the Cambridge course in Mae La camp. We are thrilled that all 24 participating students successfully sat the Cambridge exam in March 2024 and every one of them achieved A2 level or above.
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