Accountability and (mis)trust in education systems: Private supplementary tutoring and the ineffectiveness of regulation in Myanmar

Private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education, has been viewed by many families around the world as a necessary complement to schooling. The analysis presented draws on questionnaire and interview data from secondary school students, teachers, principals, parents and other stakeholders in Myanmar. Parents displayed institutional mistrust in their perception of the inadequacy of public schooling to meet their children's needs. Organisational and interpersonal mistrust were also evident. The matters of mistrust relate to the theme of accountability in educa-tion, which requires systems for regulation and monitoring. The regulations on tutoring in Myanmar were widely ig-nored and were arguably worse than useless. The article is grounded in the context of Myanmar but has considerable insights for the wider literature.