{{Short description|Public university in Myanmar}} {{Infobox university | name = Taungup University | native_name = {{lang|my|တောင်ကုတ်တက္ကသိုလ်}} | image = | former_names = Taungup College<br>Taungup Degree College | type = Public | established = {{Start date and age|2012|02|23|br=y}} | principal = | head_label = | head = | city = Taungup | state = Rakhine State | country = Myanmar | coordinates = {{coord|18.850|94.233|type:edu_region:MM|display=inline,title}} | website = }} '''Taungup University''' (Burmese: တောင်ကုတ်တက္ကသိုလ်; also spelled as '''Taunggoke University''') is a public university located in Rakhine State, Myanmar, established in 2012 to provide higher education in the region.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ဒုတိယသမ္မတ ဦးမြင့်ဆွေ တောင်ကုတ်ဒီဂရီကောလိပ် ဖွင့်ပွဲအခမ်းအနား တက်ရောက် |url=http://www.moe.gov.mm/?q=content/%E1%80%92%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%AD%E1%80%9A%E1%80%9E%E1%80%99%E1%80%B9%E1%80%99%E1%80%90-%E1%80%A6%E1%80%B8%E1%80%99%E1%80%BC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B7%E1%80%86%E1%80%BD%E1%80%B1-%E1%80%90%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%80%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%BA%E1%80%92%E1%80%AE%E1%80%82%E1%80%9B%E1%80%AE%E1%80%80%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%9C%E1%80%AD%E1%80%95%E1%80%BA-%E1%80%96%E1%80%BD%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B7%E1%80%95%E1%80%BD%E1%80%B2%E1%80%A1%E1%80%81%E1%80%99%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B8%E1%80%A1%E1%80%94%E1%80%AC%E1%80%B8-%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9B%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%80%E1%80%BA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124125230/http://www.moe.gov.mm/?q=content/%E1%80%92%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%AD%E1%80%9A%E1%80%9E%E1%80%99%E1%80%B9%E1%80%99%E1%80%90-%E1%80%A6%E1%80%B8%E1%80%99%E1%80%BC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B7%E1%80%86%E1%80%BD%E1%80%B1-%E1%80%90%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%80%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%BA%E1%80%92%E1%80%AE%E1%80%82%E1%80%9B%E1%80%AE%E1%80%80%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%9C%E1%80%AD%E1%80%95%E1%80%BA-%E1%80%96%E1%80%BD%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B7%E1%80%95%E1%80%BD%E1%80%B2%E1%80%A1%E1%80%81%E1%80%99%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B8%E1%80%A1%E1%80%94%E1%80%AC%E1%80%B8-%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9B%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%80%E1%80%BA |archive-date=2020-11-24 |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=www.moe.gov.mm}}</ref>
The university is primarily attended by students from various townships in Rakhine State, such as Toungup, Ann, Ramree, Munaung, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Taungup University in Arakan removed from list of junta-approved universities |url=https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/taungup-university-arakan-removed-list-junta-approved-universities |url-status=live |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=Burma News International |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260518080313/https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/taungup-university-arakan-removed-list-junta-approved-universities|archive-date=18 May 2026}}</ref> The university was established by U Kyauk Taung, the town's mayors, and donors, who jointly purchased 264 acres of land to educate the youth of the region.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်တွင် တောင်ကုတ်တက္ကသိုလ် တရားဝင်စတင်ဖွင့်လှစ် |url=https://www.npnewsmm.com/news/61f25ef4f83e7a6f4d5ecaf4 |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=www.npnewsmm.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220924124948/https://www.npnewsmm.com/news/61f25ef4f83e7a6f4d5ecaf4|archive-date=24 September 2022}}</ref>
== History == It was first established as Taungup College on 23 February 2012. It was upgraded to Taungup Degree College on 11 October 2016.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BackGround History » Taunggoke Degree College |url=http://dctg.moe-st.gov.mm/?page_id=8 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171225225721/http://dctg.moe-st.gov.mm/?page_id=8 |archive-date=2017-12-25 |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=dctg.moe-st.gov.mm |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Toungup Degree College to be upgraded to university level |url=https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/toungup-degree-college-be-upgraded-university-level |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=Burma News International |language=en}}</ref> The degree college was later upgraded to the current name Taungup University on 1 September 2020.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2020-09-02 |title=တက္ကသိုလ် ၁၆ ခုကို အာဆီယံဒေသတွင်းနိုင်ငံများရှိ တက္ကသိုလ်များကဲ့သို့ ပြင်ဆင်ဖွဲ့စည်း |url=https://internetjournal.media/%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%B9%E1%80%80%E1%80%9E%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF%E1%80%9C%E1%80%BA-%E1%81%81%E1%81%86-%E1%80%81%E1%80%AF%E1%80%80%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF-%E1%80%A1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%86%E1%80%AE%E1%80%9A/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227040236/https://internetjournal.media/%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%B9%E1%80%80%E1%80%9E%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF%E1%80%9C%E1%80%BA-%E1%81%81%E1%81%86-%E1%80%81%E1%80%AF%E1%80%80%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF-%E1%80%A1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%86%E1%80%AE%E1%80%9A/ |archive-date=2021-02-27 |access-date=2026-05-02 |work=Internet Journal |language=en-US}}</ref> Although it was upgraded to university status, it was not opened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was officially opened in January 2022.<ref name=":1" /> The opening ceremony was attended by State Administration Council Member Daw Aye Nu Sein and other officials.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SAC member, Union ministers attend opening ceremony of Taungup University |url=https://myanmar.gov.mm/news-media/news/latest-news/-/asset_publisher/idasset354/content/sac-member-union-ministers-attend-opening-ceremony-of-taungup-university |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=myanmar.gov.mm |language=en-US}}</ref>
According to the student union in 2019, Taungup Degree College had about over 6,000 distance learning students from all over the country.<ref>{{Cite web |title=တောင်ကုတ်ဒီဂရီကောလိပ် အဝေးသင်ကျောင်းသားရေးရာကော်မတီဖွဲ့စည်း |url=https://burmese.narinjara.com/news/detail/5da001ca94c2726fee651b4f |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=burmese.narinjara.com |language=my}}</ref>
The university has faced significant disruptions due to the Myanmar civil war military situation, with junta soldiers stationed on campus and firing heavy weapons in 2024. The university was removed from the list of Junta approved universities in August 2024 by the Myanmar military government.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Artillery shell explodes on Taungup University campus, damages properties |url=https://www.narinjara.com/news/detail/66726a22bf96ae00272cd79b |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=www.narinjara.com |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" />
In November 2024, the Arakan Army took control of the university including seizing the whole Taungup township.<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 November 2024 |title=Arakan Army complete control of Taungup town, Rakhine State |url=https://eng.mizzima.com/2024/11/29/16819 |website=Mizzima |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2024-11-30 |title=Taunggoke University Comes Under Control of Arakan Army |url=https://bnanews.net/news/3539/ |access-date=2026-05-04 |website=Border News Agency |language=en-US |archive-date=2025-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251215225858/https://bnanews.net/news/3539/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
== Majors == The university provides majors including English language, Geography, History, Philosophy, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Zoology, Botany, and Geology.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2022-04-01 |title=တောင်ကုတ်တက္ကသိုလ်ဝင်ခွင့်ရရှိသူများစာရင်း (၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်အောင်) |url=https://www.moe.gov.mm/en/content/%E1%80%90%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%80%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%BA%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%B9%E1%80%80%E1%80%9E%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF%E1%80%9C%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9D%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%81%E1%80%BD%E1%80%84%E1%80%B7%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9B%E1%80%9B%E1%80%BE%E1%80%AD%E1%80%9E%E1%80%B0%E1%80%99%E1%80%BB%E1%80%AC%E1%80%B8%E1%80%85%E1%80%AC%E1%80%9B%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B8-%E1%81%82%E1%81%80%E1%81%82%E1%81%80-%E1%80%95%E1%80%BC%E1%80%8A%E1%80%B7%E1%80%BA%E1%80%94%E1%80%BE%E1%80%85%E1%80%BA%E1%80%A1%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန |language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260518080523/https://www.moe.gov.mm/en/content/%E1%80%90%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%80%E1%80%AF%E1%80%90%E1%80%BA%E1%80%90%E1%80%80%E1%80%B9%E1%80%80%E1%80%9E%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF%E1%80%9C%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9D%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%81%E1%80%BD%E1%80%84%E1%80%B7%E1%80%BA%E1%80%9B%E1%80%9B%E1%80%BE%E1%80%AD%E1%80%9E%E1%80%B0%E1%80%99%E1%80%BB%E1%80%AC%E1%80%B8%E1%80%85%E1%80%AC%E1%80%9B%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B8-%E1%81%82%E1%81%80%E1%81%82%E1%81%80-%E1%80%95%E1%80%BC%E1%80%8A%E1%80%B7%E1%80%BA%E1%80%94%E1%80%BE%E1%80%85%E1%80%BA%E1%80%A1%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA|archive-date=18 May 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=MMRD |date=2023-11-09 |title=စစ်တွေတက္ကသိုလ်နှင့် တောင်ကုတ်တက္ကသိုလ်တို့တွင် တက်ရောက်နိုင်မည့်သူများ {{!}} Edge.com.mm : Best Education Guide in Myanmar |url=https://www.edge.com.mm/article/654c84333e7ca.html |access-date=2026-05-02 |website=www.edge.com.mm |language=en}}</ref>
== See also == * List of universities in Myanmar ** Sittwe University
== References == {{Reflist}}
Category:Universities and colleges in Myanmar Category:Universities and colleges in Rakhine State