China's “Bilingual Education” Policy in Tibet Tibetan-Medium Schooling Under Threat
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HUMAN CHINA’S “BILINGUAL EDUCATION” RIGHTS POLICY IN TIBET WATCH Tibetan-Medium Schooling Under Threat China's “Bilingual Education” Policy in Tibet Tibetan-Medium Schooling Under Threat Copyright © 2020 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-6231-38141 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people worldwide. We scrupulously investigate abuses, expose the facts widely, and pressure those with power to respect rights and secure justice. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. 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For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org MARCH 2020 ISBN: 978-1-6231-38141 China's “Bilingual Education” Policy in Tibet Tibetan-Medium Schooling Under Threat Map ........................................................................................................................ i Summary ................................................................................................................ 1 Chinese-Medium Instruction in Primary Schools and Kindergartens .......................................... 2 Pressures on Tibetan Schools to Switch to Chinese-Medium Teaching ...................................... 4 Justifications for Shifting to Chinese-Medium Instruction ......................................................... 6 School Closures and Protests ................................................................................................. 7 Domestic and International Law ..............................................................................................8 Recommendations ................................................................................................. 11 To Tibet Autonomous Region Officials: ................................................................................... 11 To National Officials: .............................................................................................................11 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 13 I. Erosion of Tibetan as Medium of Instruction in Primary Schools .............................15 A Chronology of Language Policy in the TAR and Other Tibetan Areas ...................................... 16 Pressure on TAR Primary Schools to Shift to Chinese-Medium Education ................................ 25 Consequences of Shifting the Teaching Medium .................................................................... 31 Variations in Practice ........................................................................................................... 33 Cultivated Ambiguity: Official Descriptions of Bilingual Education in the TAR .......................... 37 Stifling Debate Over Teaching Medium for TAR Primary Schools ............................................. 38 II. “Bilingual Kindergartens” .................................................................................. 41 Kindergartens and Their Purpose: Survey Findings and Interviews .......................................... 43 Use of Kindergartens for Ideological and Political Education .................................................. 48 Attendance at Kindergartens: Effectively Compulsory ............................................................ 51 Overseeing Private Kindergartens and Schools ...................................................................... 53 III. “Ethnic Mingling” ............................................................................................. 57 The Ideological Framework: Ethnic Mingling and National Security ......................................... 57 Combining Chinese-Language Study with “Ethnic Mingling” .................................................. 64 “Mingling” in Practice: Relocating Teachers from Elsewhere in China ..................................... 66 Mixed Classes, Concentrated Schooling ................................................................................ 73 Migration Policy and the Impact of Demographic Change ....................................................... 79 IV. Protests and Resistance .................................................................................... 84 Student Protests Over Language Policies in Qinghai .............................................................. 84 Petitions and Letter-Writing .................................................................................................. 87 Criminalization of Support for Mother-Tongue Education ....................................................... 88 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................. 91 Appendix 1: Extracts from Interviews ...................................................................... 92 Appendix 2: Petitions ........................................................................................... 131 Appendix 3: Social Media Debates, 2016-2017 ...................................................... 140 Appendix 4: “Why I Won’t Send You to the Municipal Kindergarten” ........................ 153 Appendix 5: Human Rights Watch Letter to Chen Baosheng, Minister of Education .... 157 Appendix 6: Human Rights Watch Letter to Wu Yingjie, Party Secretary ................... 160 Map i Summary So this is bilingual education: In theory, it means you can do both [languages]. It sounds beautiful. But in practice, the working language [in schools and offices] even at the township [rural] level is becoming Chinese. —Tibetan university professor interviewed by Human Rights Watch, 2018 China’s education policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is significantly reducing the access of ethnic Tibetans to education in their mother tongue. The government policy, though called “bilingual education,” is in practice leading to the gradual replacement of Tibetan by Chinese as the medium of instruction in primary schools throughout the region, except for classes studying Tibetan as a language. Since the 1960s, Chinese has been the language of instruction in nearly all middle and high schools in the TAR, where just under half of Tibetans in China live, but new educational practices introduced by the government in the TAR are now leading more primary schools and even kindergartens to use Chinese as the teaching language for Tibetan students. The trend towards increased use of Chinese in primary schools in Tibetan urban areas has been noted for several years, but as detailed below, there are indications that it is now becoming the norm there and is spreading to rural areas as well. In interviews that Human Rights Watch conducted in September 2019, parents with children at rural primary schools in six different townships in northern TAR said that a Chinese-medium teaching system had been introduced in their local primary schools the previous March. There have been no public announcements of a government policy in the TAR requiring rural primary schools to teach their classes in Chinese, but an official working on educational issues in the TAR told Human Rights Watch that he expects the government to introduce a policy requiring all primary schools in the TAR to shift to Chinese-medium education. China formally introduced a policy of “bilingual education” in 2010 for schools in all minority areas in China, an approach to minority education considered appropriate internationally when it promotes competency in both the local and the national language. The official position of the TAR authorities is that both Tibetan and Chinese languages should be “promoted,” leaving individual schools to decide which language to prioritize as the teaching medium. However, Human Rights Watch’s research suggests that TAR 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MARCH 2020 authorities are using a strategy of cultivated ambiguity in their public statements while using indirect pressure to push primary schools, where an increasing number of ethnic Chinese teachers are teaching, to adopt Chinese-medium instruction at the expense of Tibetan, such as allocating increasing numbers of ethnic Chinese teachers who do not speak Tibetan to positions in Tibetan schools. Chinese-Medium Instruction in Primary Schools and Kindergartens There is almost no publicly available data about the medium of instruction currently used in primary schools or kindergartens in the TAR or other Tibetan areas. But Human Rights Watch’s research found that local authorities in the TAR began preparations from about the year 2000 to encourage and facilitate a gradual shift to Chinese-medium teaching in primary schools in the region. These preparations started with instructions by the central authorities in Beijing that required local administrations throughout China to prepare to introduce bilingual education for communities that are not ethnic Chinese. What form that policy should take has varied significantly from province to province, but in 2001, all primary schools in urban areas of Tibet began to teach Tibetan pupils Chinese language from Grade 1, instead of Grade 3 as had been the case previously. However, there was no