Basic Education High School No. 1 Dagon (Burmese: အခြေခံ ပညာ အထက်တန်း ကျောင်း အမှတ် (၁) ဒဂုံ; formerly, Methodist English High School; commonly known as ဒဂုံ ၁ ), located a few miles north of downtown Yangon is considered one of the best public high schools in Myanmar. Dagon 1 offers classes from kindergarten to tenth standard (recently renamed Grade 1 to Grade 11) to about 6500 students.
Attended almost exclusively by the children of the wealthy, Dagon 1 has some of the best educational facilities available in a Burmese private school. The school routinely sends a disproportionate share of outstanding students to the country's most selective universities each year. Its most famous alumna is the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.[1] Many of the Burmese entertainment industry's top stars are Dagon 1 alumni. Dagon 1 in recent year has lost some of its appeal as a top school as ultra-wealthy parents now send their children to expensive English language medium "international" private schools.[2]
The school was founded in 1882 as Methodist Episcopal Girls School on Lewis Street (now Seikkantha Street). In 1894, the school was moved to its current campus on the corner of Lancaster Road (now Nawaday Road) and Signal Pagoda Road, and was also renamed Methodist English Girls High School. The school consisted primarily of a three-story Victorian-era style building 213 feet (65 m) long and 145 feet (44 m) wide. At first, boys were accepted only in the elementary level (from K to 3). During the interwar period, boys were allowed from K to 4. Just before World War II, the school had 55 students. The school was closed down for 6 years after World War II and later reopened in May, 1947. The principal, Mrs. Logie, repaired the school buildings that were destroyed during the war. At that time, the school began to prepare its students not only for the matriculation exam but also for the GCE (General Certificate of Education) exam from the University of London.[citation needed]
In 1951, the number of students increased to 850 and the four-story Kindergarten building (113'×51') with 15 rooms was built in 1952 to accommodate the students. The school's name was Methodist English High School (MEHS). On 14 April 1965, the institution was nationalized and became a public school and has been operated by the government ever since. In 1986, a new three-story building (90'×34') was built to correspond to the increased number of students. The school is currently running under the Department of Basic Education which is directly controlled by the Ministry of Education.
During 1988 democracy uprising, Dagon1 was one of the first high schools in Burma to form student union and participate in the protest boycott marches. Throughout the uprising, members of Dagon1 student union lead their fellow students and teachers in various protest marches. Dagon1 protest column can be clearly distinguished amongst other columns by their Green Flag with White Fighting Peacock emblem, former official flag of All Burma Federation of Student Unions and the green and white represents the uniform colours of high school students. After September 1988 coup by the military, some of dagon1 students went to Thai-Burma border and joined All Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF) to achieve democracy and human rights in Burma through armed struggle.
Student body
Dagon 1 has the largest student body in Yangon and in Myanmar, numbering near 6,600.[4] A high student-to-teacher ratio exists, like most of the schools in Myanmar. The students are spread across eleven standards or grades, from Grade 1 (formerly Kindergarten) to Grade 11 (formerly Tenth Standard). Because an increasing demand for enrollment at the school, Dagon 1's student body is in the shape of a pyramid, with the number of younger students outnumbering that of older students. New classes are formed to handle the increased enrollment each year.[citation needed]
Like all public schools in Myanmar, Dagon-1 requires that students wear the school uniform at all times. There are two sets of uniform, one for wear from Kindergarten to 5th Standard (Grades 1 to 6), and another, more traditional one for wear from the 6th Standard to 10th Standard (Grades 7 to 11). But all uniforms are of the same colour - a white shirt or blouse, with a green garment for the torso.
School badge
A circular badge, bearing an oil lamp (representing wisdom and education), with a circular cogwheel and a rice plant together with the school's name. Inside the cogwheel, there are 5 coloured sections: Orange, Yellow, Green, Red and Blue representing the school council team colors.
Boys uniform
From Grade 1 to the Grade 5, male students are required to wear a white shirt (with or without the collar), tucked into a green long pants. Tee shirts and sports shirts are not acceptable. Shoes and the traditional slipper, Hnyat-phanat are permitted as footwear.
From the Grade 6 onwards, the students have to wear a white shirt (with or without the collar), and a green paso. Only the Hnyat-phanat is permitted. Traditional Mandalay slippers, usually of velvet or other materials, are worn.
Girls uniform
Girls have to wear a white bow hair-clip on their heads.
From Grade 1 to Grade 5, girls can wear either skirts or pants, with a white shirt. Girls usually wear slippers.
For Grade 6 onwards, the uniform also becomes more traditional like its male counterpart. The girl must wear only the side opening (yin-phone) traditional Burmese blouse, with the Htamein as the lower garment.
Accomplishments
It ranks the highest overall in Burmese High School in the University Entrance Examination, conducted by the Board of Examinations. Dagon-1's student body produces many high scoring students both in terms of collective subjects and individual subjects, making into the very competitive "nationwide outstanding top-ten students' list", colloquially known as the whole-Burma or top ten list quite often.
Although Myanmar's education system is extremely academic oriented, Dagon-1 has been able to produce some good athletes and artists. Dagon 1 has produced many nationally selected athletes, in the fields of swimming, football (soccer), sailing, wushu, and badminton, have won medals in both national and international competitions, such as South East Asian Games.
Many students have also won medals in "Myanmar Traditional and Cultural Performing Arts Competition" (So-Ka-Yay-Tee) and win painting competitions.
In 2011, the top nine scorers of the 2011 Matriculation Exam came from Dagon 1.[5] In 2015, the four of the top 10 scorers in the 2015 Matriculation Exam came from Dagon 1.[6]
Renovations
Due to increasing number of students, a new seven-story building was built in front of the soccer field. To build this building, an old cafeteria building was demolished. With the rising use of the internet and government promotion of information technology, two IT labs have been added to the campus facilities. The Dagon Thiri hall, Chemistry Lab, Physics Lab and Biology Labs are renovated in 2004 for the practical classes. A new cafeteria building was also built and renovated year by year. Security cameras were also installed within the school campus. Some classrooms had been renovated and installed air-conditioners donated by students.
Facilities and buildings
Three-storey Victorian-era style building (Main Building)
Five-storey Building
Three-storey Building
Seven-storey Building
Dagon Thiri Hall
Computer Hall
Gymnasium
School Garden
Band and orchestra practicing rooms
The Library building at the ground floor of new seven-storey building.
A Soccer field - Every rainy season, the football matches are held.
Canteen
Dagon Thiri Hall - used for religious ceremonies, school reunions and stage shows
Biology, Physics and Chemistry Labs - On the 5th floor of five-storey building.
Gymnasium - It also serves as a back-up assembly hall and basketball ground.
Computer Training Hall - built beside the assembly hall under the government's policy to embrace information technology.
Multimedia Teaching Lab - Also use as English Language training room.
IT Lab
Tennis Court - Inside the garden in front of the school.
List of principals
Doreen Logie (1947–1965)
Tun Tin (1965–1966)
Aung Than (1966–1977)
Tin Myint (1977–1983)
Naing Aung (1983–1992)
Than Swe (1992–1996)
Kyaw Kyaw (1996–2007)
Dr. Aung Ko Ko (2007–2012)
Aung Ko Ko (2012–2015)
Chit Tun (2016–2018)
Daw Myint Myint Aye (2018–2020)
Ed Sheeran (2020-2022)
Dr. Sandar Mya Nyein (2022)
Khit Tha Khin (2022-present)
Notable alumni
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(December 2019)
^Whitney Stewart (1997). Aung San Suu Kyi: Fearless Voice of Burma. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN978-0-8225-4931-4.
^Sandra Davie (13 October 2008). "I see no future for my two sons in Myanmar". The Straits Times.
^. The Myanmar Times. 29 October 2001. Archived from the original on 15 June 2009.
^ဦးအောင်ကိုကို, ကျောင်းအုပ်ဆရာကြီး. "၂၀၁၄-၂၀၁၅ ပညာသင်နှစ်တွင် သင်ကြားမှုပုံစံများ ပြောင်းလဲသွားမည့်အပေါ် ကျောင်းအုပ်ဆရာကြီး ဦးအောင်ကိုကို(အထက-၁၊ဒဂုံ)နှင့် တွေ့ဆုံမေးမြန်းခြင်း". Popular Myanmar. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014.
^"မြန်မာ တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံး Top စာရင်းဝင် ကျောင်းသား ၊ ကျောင်းသူ ၉ ဦး အ.ထ.က ၁ ဒဂုံ မှ ထွက်ရှိ". MRTV-4. 20 December 2011. Archived from the original on 28 December 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
^. 2015. Archived from the original on 22 July 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2015.
^. Archived from the original on 29 December 2007. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
^နန်းဆု, ရတီစိုး (25–30 May 2014). . Popular Myanmar. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014.
External links
M.E.H.S Methodist English High School alumni website
basic, education, high, school, dagon, this, article, relies, excessively, references, primary, sources, please, improve, this, article, adding, secondary, tertiary, sources, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, november, 2007, learn, when, . This article relies excessively on references to primary sources Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources Find sources Basic Education High School No 1 Dagon news newspapers books scholar JSTOR November 2007 Learn how and when to remove this template message Basic Education High School No 1 Dagon Burmese အခ ခ ပည အထက တန က င အမ တ ၁ ဒဂ formerly Methodist English High School commonly known as ဒဂ ၁ located a few miles north of downtown Yangon is considered one of the best public high schools in Myanmar Dagon 1 offers classes from kindergarten to tenth standard recently renamed Grade 1 to Grade 11 to about 6500 students DesignationsYangon City LandmarkBasic Education High School No 1 Dagon အခ ခ ပည အထက တန က င အမ တ ၁ ဒဂ Address57 Alanpya Pagoda Road Dagon 11191Yangon Yangon RegionMyanmarInformationTypePublicMottoesDo we learn not for school but for lifeEstablished1882School number1PrincipalDaw Myint Myint AyeFaculty150Grades1 to 11Number of students6500Attended almost exclusively by the children of the wealthy Dagon 1 has some of the best educational facilities available in a Burmese private school The school routinely sends a disproportionate share of outstanding students to the country s most selective universities each year Its most famous alumna is the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi 1 Many of the Burmese entertainment industry s top stars are Dagon 1 alumni Dagon 1 in recent year has lost some of its appeal as a top school as ultra wealthy parents now send their children to expensive English language medium international private schools 2 The school s main colonial era building is on the Yangon City Heritage List 3 Contents 1 History 2 Student body 3 Uniform 3 1 School badge 3 2 Boys uniform 3 3 Girls uniform 4 Accomplishments 5 Renovations 6 Facilities and buildings 7 List of principals 8 Notable alumni 8 1 Academia 8 2 Actors 8 3 Actresses 8 4 Businessmen 8 5 Directors 8 6 Statesmen and politicians 8 7 Singers 9 References 10 External linksHistory Edit Music Festival of Dagon1 in 2004 The school was founded in 1882 as Methodist Episcopal Girls School on Lewis Street now Seikkantha Street In 1894 the school was moved to its current campus on the corner of Lancaster Road now Nawaday Road and Signal Pagoda Road and was also renamed Methodist English Girls High School The school consisted primarily of a three story Victorian era style building 213 feet 65 m long and 145 feet 44 m wide At first boys were accepted only in the elementary level from K to 3 During the interwar period boys were allowed from K to 4 Just before World War II the school had 55 students The school was closed down for 6 years after World War II and later reopened in May 1947 The principal Mrs Logie repaired the school buildings that were destroyed during the war At that time the school began to prepare its students not only for the matriculation exam but also for the GCE General Certificate of Education exam from the University of London citation needed In 1951 the number of students increased to 850 and the four story Kindergarten building 113 51 with 15 rooms was built in 1952 to accommodate the students The school s name was Methodist English High School MEHS On 14 April 1965 the institution was nationalized and became a public school and has been operated by the government ever since In 1986 a new three story building 90 34 was built to correspond to the increased number of students The school is currently running under the Department of Basic Education which is directly controlled by the Ministry of Education During 1988 democracy uprising Dagon1 was one of the first high schools in Burma to form student union and participate in the protest boycott marches Throughout the uprising members of Dagon1 student union lead their fellow students and teachers in various protest marches Dagon1 protest column can be clearly distinguished amongst other columns by their Green Flag with White Fighting Peacock emblem former official flag of All Burma Federation of Student Unions and the green and white represents the uniform colours of high school students After September 1988 coup by the military some of dagon1 students went to Thai Burma border and joined All Burma Student Democratic Front ABSDF to achieve democracy and human rights in Burma through armed struggle Student body EditDagon 1 has the largest student body in Yangon and in Myanmar numbering near 6 600 4 A high student to teacher ratio exists like most of the schools in Myanmar The students are spread across eleven standards or grades from Grade 1 formerly Kindergarten to Grade 11 formerly Tenth Standard Because an increasing demand for enrollment at the school Dagon 1 s student body is in the shape of a pyramid with the number of younger students outnumbering that of older students New classes are formed to handle the increased enrollment each year citation needed Uniform EditFurther information High Schools in Myanmar Like all public schools in Myanmar Dagon 1 requires that students wear the school uniform at all times There are two sets of uniform one for wear from Kindergarten to 5th Standard Grades 1 to 6 and another more traditional one for wear from the 6th Standard to 10th Standard Grades 7 to 11 But all uniforms are of the same colour a white shirt or blouse with a green garment for the torso School badge Edit A circular badge bearing an oil lamp representing wisdom and education with a circular cogwheel and a rice plant together with the school s name Inside the cogwheel there are 5 coloured sections Orange Yellow Green Red and Blue representing the school council team colors Boys uniform Edit From Grade 1 to the Grade 5 male students are required to wear a white shirt with or without the collar tucked into a green long pants Tee shirts and sports shirts are not acceptable Shoes and the traditional slipper Hnyat phanat are permitted as footwear From the Grade 6 onwards the students have to wear a white shirt with or without the collar and a green paso Only the Hnyat phanat is permitted Traditional Mandalay slippers usually of velvet or other materials are worn Girls uniform Edit Girls have to wear a white bow hair clip on their heads From Grade 1 to Grade 5 girls can wear either skirts or pants with a white shirt Girls usually wear slippers For Grade 6 onwards the uniform also becomes more traditional like its male counterpart The girl must wear only the side opening yin phone traditional Burmese blouse with the Htamein as the lower garment Accomplishments EditIt ranks the highest overall in Burmese High School in the University Entrance Examination conducted by the Board of Examinations Dagon 1 s student body produces many high scoring students both in terms of collective subjects and individual subjects making into the very competitive nationwide outstanding top ten students list colloquially known as the whole Burma or top ten list quite often Although Myanmar s education system is extremely academic oriented Dagon 1 has been able to produce some good athletes and artists Dagon 1 has produced many nationally selected athletes in the fields of swimming football soccer sailing wushu and badminton have won medals in both national and international competitions such as South East Asian Games Many students have also won medals in Myanmar Traditional and Cultural Performing Arts Competition So Ka Yay Tee and win painting competitions In 2011 the top nine scorers of the 2011 Matriculation Exam came from Dagon 1 5 In 2015 the four of the top 10 scorers in the 2015 Matriculation Exam came from Dagon 1 6 Renovations EditDue to increasing number of students a new seven story building was built in front of the soccer field To build this building an old cafeteria building was demolished With the rising use of the internet and government promotion of information technology two IT labs have been added to the campus facilities The Dagon Thiri hall Chemistry Lab Physics Lab and Biology Labs are renovated in 2004 for the practical classes A new cafeteria building was also built and renovated year by year Security cameras were also installed within the school campus Some classrooms had been renovated and installed air conditioners donated by students Facilities and buildings EditThree storey Victorian era style building Main Building Five storey Building Three storey Building Seven storey Building Dagon Thiri Hall Computer Hall Gymnasium School Garden Band and orchestra practicing rooms The Library building at the ground floor of new seven storey building A Soccer field Every rainy season the football matches are held Canteen Dagon Thiri Hall used for religious ceremonies school reunions and stage shows Biology Physics and Chemistry Labs On the 5th floor of five storey building Gymnasium It also serves as a back up assembly hall and basketball ground Computer Training Hall built beside the assembly hall under the government s policy to embrace information technology Multimedia Teaching Lab Also use as English Language training room IT Lab Tennis Court Inside the garden in front of the school List of principals EditDoreen Logie 1947 1965 Tun Tin 1965 1966 Aung Than 1966 1977 Tin Myint 1977 1983 Naing Aung 1983 1992 Than Swe 1992 1996 Kyaw Kyaw 1996 2007 Dr Aung Ko Ko 2007 2012 Aung Ko Ko 2012 2015 Chit Tun 2016 2018 Daw Myint Myint Aye 2018 2020 Ed Sheeran 2020 2022 Dr Sandar Mya Nyein 2022 Khit Tha Khin 2022 present Notable alumni EditThis article s list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia s verifiability policy Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations December 2019 Academia Edit Thaw KaungActors Edit Dwe Kyaw Thu Soe Thu Yaza Ne Win Thu Riya citation needed Actresses Edit Wah Wah Win Shwe Eindra Kyaw Zin Hsu Eaint San Poe Ei Ei Khant A Nyein PhyuBusinessmen Edit Michael Moe MyintDirectors Edit Thura Zarganar 7 Sin Yaw Mg MgStatesmen and politicians Edit Aung San Suu Kyi Htin KyawSingers Edit Than E Bilat Pyan Than Ma Than E Fend Dora Aung Yin Hayma Ne Win May Sweet Nay Win Bobby Soxer Raymond Nan Su Yati Soe 8 References Edit Whitney Stewart 1997 Aung San Suu Kyi Fearless Voice of Burma Twenty First Century Books ISBN 978 0 8225 4931 4 Sandra Davie 13 October 2008 I see no future for my two sons in Myanmar The Straits Times Special Reports Heritage List The Myanmar Times 29 October 2001 Archived from the original on 15 June 2009 ဦ အ င က က က င အ ပ ဆရ က ၂၀၁၄ ၂၀၁၅ ပည သင န စ တ င သင က မ ပ စ မ ပ င လ သ မည အပ က င အ ပ ဆရ က ဦ အ င က က အထက ၁ ဒဂ န င တ ဆ မ မ န ခ င Popular Myanmar Archived from the original on 19 August 2014 မ န မ တစ န င င လ Top စ ရင ဝင က င သ က င သ ၉ ဦ အ ထ က ၁ ဒဂ မ ထ က ရ MRTV 4 20 December 2011 Archived from the original on 28 December 2012 Retrieved 4 March 2012 ၂၀၁၅ တက ကသ လ ဝင တန စ မ ပ အမ တ အမ ဆ ၁၁ ဦ စ ရင သ ပ ပ ဘ သ တ 2015 Archived from the original on 22 July 2015 Retrieved 18 July 2015 Zarganar s auto biography Archived from the original on 29 December 2007 Retrieved 3 August 2008 နန ဆ ရတ စ 25 30 May 2014 က င ဖ င ခ န ရင ခ န လ ပ ရ မ န င က င သ ဘဝ ဖ တ သန ခ သ တ စက သ Popular Myanmar Archived from the original on 9 August 2014 External links EditOfficial School alumni website M E H S Methodist English High School alumni websiteCoordinates 16 47 08 N 96 09 22 4 E 16 78556 N 96 156222 E 16 78556 96 156222 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Basic Education High School No 1 Dagon amp oldid 1147946998, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
