Community teachers in ethnic education systems: A struggle for fair compensation

Supporting community teachers in conflict and crisis settings is a significant challenge to maintaining quality education services. This paper draws on a review of literature on humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus configurations and discourse to contextualise current debates. It derives insights from two qualitative studies that investigate the challenges and opportunities in sustaining the community teacher workforce in Myanmar. Employing a mixed methods approach, the study explored whether a shift in the configuration of HDP nexus programming could provide a meaningful way forward to achieving fair compensation for community teachers. This paper identifies that while siloed and bridging configurations have been instrumental in improving collaboration between humanitarian and development actors, they have done little to resolve the pressing issue of equitable salaries for community teachers in Myanmar, thus requiring an intentional, contextually aware configuration.