Publications

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Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)

Discrimination in Healthcare

Structure and Funding

China is different from most countries in the world in that it has chosen not to enshrine in law the percentage of Chinese Gross National Product (GNP) that should be spent on education. In 1992, China came 145th of 153 countries tabulated by UNESCO, allocating only 2% of its GNP to education. Even when the NPC promulgated the Chinese Education Law in 1995, the issue of funding remained a vague concern, with a mere suggestion that it should be 'gradually increased' and determined by the State Council.

The issue of funding has undergone numerous changes since China's transition to a market economy in the 1980s. Pre-1985, all revenues from regional and provincial governments were submitted to the central government, which would then redistribute them around the country as they saw fit. However, all this changed with the CCP's 'Decision on Education' made in 1985, which shifted responsibility for expenditure to local governments, who were accordingly allowed to keep the majority of their revenues for allocation. The dramatic consequence of this reform was to greatly reduce funding for education from the central government, and to make it almost entirely dependent on the local economy. As the majority of government investment up until this point had been directed at urban areas of the "TAR" with large populations of Chinese immigrants, the underdeveloped rural areas, home to more than 80% of the Tibetan population, suddenly found themselves heavily disadvantaged. Levels of investment in local education in these areas subsequently decreased, accelerating the urban/rural - and thereby the Chinese/Tibetan - inequality. A survey conducted in 1996 revealed that Lhasa municipality (Urban) had 538 primary schools compared with only 44 in Ngari Prefecture (Rural), despite the fact that the latter constitutes roughly a quarter of the whole of the "TAR".

Yet instead of channeling extra funding into the poorer rural areas where Tibetans are desperately in need of assistance, the government introduced what it calls the "Hope Project" - a system of funding which depends on voluntary labour and the donations of local people to build ‘Community' schools (Tibetan ‘Mangtsuk lobchung'). As Gyaltsen Norbu, Chairman of the "TAR" People's Government, stated at the Fifth "TAR" Conference on Education,

"Whenever possible, local governments should mobilise and organise peasants and herdsmen to reconstruct unsafe village schools, build new schools, and improve teaching conditions by contributing their labour service or construction materials on a voluntary basis."

Many Tibetan refugees have reported being forced to take part in this scheme. Rinchen, a 25 year-old man from Dzogong County, Chamdo Prefecture escaped to India in December 1999. "There were no schools in my village while I was growing up, so I had no chance to study. In 1993, when I was 18, I decided to become a monk as it seemed the only way I could receive education. Six years later, in August of 1999, the county authorities announced that a primary school was to be constructed in our village, and that it would be funded and constructed by the villagers themselves. Between 50 and 60 yuan was collected from each family, and the local Tibetans were made to do the construction themselves without receiving any salary. It was still unfinished when I escaped, because the materials they had to build with were very poor, and the local administration refused to give them any extra financial aid."

A 60 year-old farmer from Jomda County also in Chamdo Prefecture arrived in India in January 2000. "There were no facilities in our village for education, and nearly everyone was illiterate. Then the authorities told us they were going to build a school in our village and we were all very excited. They said that as it was to be a community school, we had to pay for and build it ourselves, so they collected money and wood from each family in the village, and took one member of every household to work on the construction. We put in so much work for this school, and yet when it was finished the authorities simply lost interest, and did not send any teachers to help us learn. The school stood empty nearly everyday because none of us knew how or what to teach. The only time the village children would go was when the county officials were visiting, so it seems all our work was just to show the outside world how the Chinese have 'helped' us. Maybe they never intended to give us an education."

Rural Tibetans are thus forced to finance and construct educational institutions at their own expense, while China continues to claim responsibility for their 'liberation'. In a country where more than 85% of the population is living below the poverty line, this demand on personal resources place terrible strain on an already economically marginalised people. Where the needs cannot be met, children are simply denied an education, while others find themselves paying all they have for a service that should be free by constitutional right.