First women graduate from officer training

school
By Tim McLaughlin | Thursday, 28 August 2014
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The first female military officers in more than five decades graduated from
training today in a ceremony attended by Commander-in-Chief Senior General
Min Aung Hlaing.
Photos of the event were posted on the Facebook page of U Zaw Htay, a director in the
President's Office. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing inspected and addressed the cadets,
who successfully completed their training at the Army Officer Training School in Yangon
Regions Hmawbi township.
An advertisement ran in state-media in October 2013 inviting women to apply to join the
ranks of the military for the first since the recruitment of women for non-medical roles was
stopped in 1961.
The advertisement said that candidates had to be at least 160 centimeters tall, weigh no
more than 59 kilograms, and be between 25 and 30 years of age and single. The
advertisement said that those who successfully completed the training would enter service
in commissioned posts at the rank of second lieutenant.
According to Maung Aung Myoe, a professor, associate dean and program director at the
International University of Japan and author of Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar Armed
Forces since 1948, the first women were commissioned into the Myanmar armed forces by
way of the air force in 1954. A year later the army took in its first female officers, but
recruitment of women for non-medical services was stopped in 1961.
In January, Lieutenant Colonel Soe Soe Myint and Lieutenant Colonel San Thida Khin
became the first female military officers appointed to parliament. Both joined the military in
medical roles.