Focus Tibet

Tibetan kindergarten children are forced into boarding school system

A report from Dr. Gyal Lo published by the Tibet Action Institute (https://tibetaction.net/2022/05/24/eyewitness-confirms-mandatory-boarding-preschools-operating-across-tibet/) reveals details of a system that forces kindergarten-age Tibetan children into a boarding school system. An earlier report from December 2021 had already shown that around 800 Tibetan children from the age of 000, in isolated cases from 6 years, and up to the age of 4 have to live in boarding schools. That is 18% of the Tibetan students [Comp. Tibet information from 16. December 2021; AROUND].

What is new, according to research that Gyal Lo carried out in Tibet before fleeing to Canada last year, is that small children aged 4 to 6 are affected. At least 50 of the children are said to be interned in about 100 boarding schools in all regions of Tibet. There is no official information about these institutions.

The children spend 5 days a week in these boarding schools and are allowed to go home to their parents over the weekend. During the time of the classes, the children are taught in Chinese and apparently systematically indoctrinated to adopt a Chinese identity. The report shows several examples of this.

In one lesson, children are encouraged to close their eyes, imagine a Chinese cultural object and how they would use it. In performances, the children are dressed in Chinese army uniforms and are supposed to depict scenes from the civil war in the last century. Textbooks show images of radicalized Japanese soldiers with swords and bayonets abusing Chinese civilians and the Red Army firing on the Japanese.

According to parents, the lessons lead to many children withdrawing from their parents' house on weekend visits and behaving "like guests". After just three months at the boarding school, they began to talk to each other in Chinese. At the boarding school, the children were initially unable to express their basic needs in Chinese, so Tibetan women had to be hired to help them brush their teeth and wash their clothes. This practice was later discontinued because the Chinese teachers complained that the Tibetan women communicated with the children in Tibetan. Pictures of historical Tibetan figures could still be seen in some of these boarding schools. The authorities forced these schools to take down the pictures and exchange them for pictures of communist leaders.

An eyewitness told Gyal Lo that some Tibetan parents travel long distances near these boarding schools and stay in their cars during the week to be close to their children.

Gyal Lo was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and completed his university education in the Department of Culture and Language at the Nationalities College in Lanzhou. He also taught there as an assistant from 1985 for 10 years. He later received his PhD in educational sociology from the University of Toronto. After his return to China, he taught as a professor in educational sciences at the University of Yunnan. He has lived in Toronto since escaping last year.

Tibet Action Institute, May 24, 2022 // dr. Uwe Meya

Gyal Lo (Photo: Tibet Action Institute)

Please follow and like us:

Leave a Comment

Your e-mail address will not be published. Required fields are marked with * marked