The report recommended that in the primary and post-primary schools both English and
Burmese should be regarded as subjects of equal importance and taught intensively from
Standard I. The report also encouraged bilingual instruction in both primary and postprimary.
In the pre-university and university stages, English must continue to be the main
medium of instruction. Indigenous vernacular languages other than Burmese and English
were recommended to be taught in primary schools in which there was a majority of
students whose mother tongues were neither Burmese nor English. Furthermore, the
report introduced a Romanised script for the Burmese language as a supplement to but not
as a substitute for the present Burmese script. The rational was that the Romanised script
would aid foreigners in learning the Burmese language quickly and might be useful for
certain commercial purposes including the despatch of telegrams in Burmese (Office of
the SUPDT, 1947, p8). Burmese nationalists were critical of the introduction of the
Romanised script (e.g. Nyi Nyi, 1976) and it never was adopted. The substitution of a
Romanised script was successful in the case of some ethnic minorities areas such as Chin
and Kachin routinely use Romanised script – often as originally introduced by Christian
missionaries - for their languages till today. Amongst the ethnic Karen, some areas use
Romanised script and some use their own Karen script.