Publications

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Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)

Discrimination in Education

"As a place for cultivating people, schools are not a forum on 'freedom'. Schools should be captured by socialism."

Article 5 (e) (v) of the ICERD guarantees, without discrimination of any kind,

"the right to education and training."

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ratified by China, also makes a number of provisions for participating states, including an agreement that

"the education of the child shall be directed to " the development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own.

The Chinese government's Education Law stipulates that "every citizen shall enjoy equal educational opportunities regardless of race, nationality, sex, occupation, financial status and religion." In China's White Paper on Minorities Policy, the education of minorities is further asserted to be "of paramount importance to the improvement of the quality of the minority population and to the promotion of economic and cultural development in ethnic minority areas." Despite these guarantees, discriminatory policies and practices in the field of education continue to marginalize Tibetan students. Experience has shown that governments tend to use the system of education as a means to systematically discriminate against ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, as the educationalist Manfred Nowak points out:

"If governments wish to prevent certain groups from equally participating in the political, social, economic or cultural life in their countries, one of the most efficient methods is to deny them equal access to education""

In each and every one of its White Papers, the Chinese government tirelessly highlights the failure of old Tibet to provide universal education for ordinary Tibetans. It cannot be denied that literacy was largely confined to the elite classes, monasteries or those in government service in old Tibet, and yet to incessantly use this as justification for the system of Chinese education currently thriving in its place is equally wrong. Tibetans in exile, in evaluating their past, have succeeded in evolving a broad and democratic system of education that demands far greater admiration than the Chinese system currently imposed on Tibet, which has shown itself to be not only discriminatory and distorted, but also inadequate. As the Alliance for Research in Tibet concluded:

"Tibetans in exile have achieved remarkable success in establishing a school system in which capable teachers impart useful education. Whatever educational shortcomings the old Tibetan system had, Tibetans in exile have proven their capacity to leave them behind and have done so with vigour. China's continuing condemnation of pre-1949 Tibetan educational practices has become unfair and irrelevant, serving chiefly as a vehicle by which China hopes to advance its claims of having vanquished a feudal system and established one far more just and progressive. More particularly, the Chinese insist Tibetans have benefited greatly, and will do so even more, from the institution of Chinese education."

The hope of receiving an education in exile is one of the most common reasons given by Tibetan refugees when asked why they chose to leave their country, and the fact that they risk their lives to do so speaks volumes about the quality of education offered to them by the Chinese government. The problem lies in the Chinese belief that equates modernisation with sinicisation - education is for them a tool through which cultural differences are suppressed under a hegemonic doctrine of Chinese supremacy. Where Tibetan history is taught at all, it is expressed in terms of a ‘backward' and ‘barbaric' land ‘liberated' by China, and Tibetan students are made to feel ashamed of both their background and identity. A comprehensive survey of schools in Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures outside the "TAR" confirmed this, and concluded that "[b]ecause the Chinese authorities view themselves as the embodiment of what Tibetans must become, much of the educational process has a ‘be like us' theme. This is neither new nor communist."

Tibetan culture, so deeply rooted in the older generation, continues to defy Chinese efforts to suppress it, and the authorities have naturally come to the conclusion that only by erasing this early on in the younger generation can they finally rest easy. It is no coincidence therefore, that the Chinese also use the term ‘education' when referring to the campaigns mounted to denounce the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. Their apparent fear of difference, or paranoia of losing control, have increasingly turned Chinese ‘education' into nationalistic ‘indoctrination', and relegated Tibetan students to a position where learning has become a process more of erasing and rewriting than inspiring.