Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)
Discrimination in Healthcare
Fees and Expenses
According to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child,
primary education should be free and available to all. The
provision of nine-year compulsory education was also a key
goal of the 1986 Chinese ‘Law on Compulsory Education',
Article 10 of which stated that "The State shall not
charge tuition fees for students attending compulsory
education." Yet as a result of the reforms mentioned above,
which led to an acute lack of state funding in education,
schools began to charge children increasing amounts
of money to cover the deficits in their budget. Before
long, the situation had spiraled out of control, and many
institutions were forcing unrealistic and exorbitant fees
upon the schoolchildren of "TAR" - so much so that in 1993
approximately one third of school-age children in the "TAR"
could not afford to go to school. Students eventually
began to fight back, and unable to turn a deaf ear to
increasing public protest, the government was forced to
admit the failure of its intended reforms:
"The current accelerated shift from a planned economy to
a socialist market economy has posed many new problems
regarding educational reform and development, and brought
to light some glaring difficulties. The main problems and
difficulties we currently encounter in primary education,
especially primary education in the countryside, include
funding shortages, arrears in payment of teacher's
salaries, the collection of unwarranted fees and the
rising drop-out rate among primary and secondary school
students."
In response, the "TAR" Party Committee set up an inquiry
into the charging of exorbitant fees, following which six
kinds of education fee were cancelled.
Since then, new guidelines were drawn up which returned a
larger proportion of responsibility for education funding
to the central government. Yet the situation is still far
from resolved, for TCHRD has received numerous reports from
Tibetan refugees indicating that Tibetan children across
the region are today still being charged illegal and often
exorbitant fees for schooling. Moreover, it appears from
their testimony that these fees are directly discriminatory
against Tibetans, as Chinese pupils often attend the same
schools for smaller fees or even free of charge.
14 year-old
Namsel
from the Barkhor area of Lhasa, fled Tibet in January
2000 with the hope of being admitted to a school in
India. "Primary school is compulsory in Lhasa, and parents
are fined 1000 yuan if they fail to send their children
to school. I attended Shol Primary School for seven years
from the age of 5 to 12, along with just under 1000 other
children, most of whom were Chinese. The parents of all the
Tibetan children had to pay an initial fee of 400 yuan for
admission, and then 600-700 yuan as a school fee every six
months. The Chinese parents were charged very differently -
they had to pay only 200 yuan for admission and no more
than 450 for the school fees. I know this because my
mother talked to many other Chinese mothers. Similarly,
Tibetans had to pay 160 yuan for the school uniform and
100 yuan for general stationery, while the Chinese were
charged only 75 and 60 yuan respectively. Furthermore,
the teachers at Shol would often collect a little extra
money from the Tibetans to buy equipment for the classrooms
such as brooms or curtains for the windows, but they never
asked the Chinese children. Nobody dared to ask why these
charges were so different - we are just generally looked
down on as backward, dirty Tibetans."
15 year-old
Dolma
from Lithang County, Sichuan Province, arrived in India
in January 2000. "I started my education rather late
at the age of eight, and attended the County Primary
School in Lithang for five years. It was a big school,
with around 700 children, approximately half of whom were
Tibetan. The Tibetans had to pay around 200 yuan as a
school fee every six months, while the Chinese only had
to pay 100 yuan. There were a few Chinese students who had
parents working at the school, and they didn't have to pay
anything at all. Sometimes the teachers would collect 20
yuan from each student to buy things for the classroom,
but they would only ask the Chinese children if the money
given by the Tibetans wasn't enough."
Dukar-kyi,
a 30 year-old semi-nomad from Ngaba County in Amdo,
arrived in exile in March 1999. "My family was very poor,
so we could only afford to send one of my children to the
primary school in the village. We had to pay a fee of 500
yuan in advance for every year, but we didn't have anywhere
near this amount, so my daughter had to leave the school
again after only two months. I felt very ashamed at not
being able to give her an education, but we simply didn't
have enough money."
22 year-old
Gonpo Sonam
from Dzoge County in Ngaba "TAP" arrived in India in June
1999. "I attended Nubjang Higher Nationalities School
for 3 years from 1993 to 1996, but then I had to drop
out because of the fees. Tibetans had to pay 700 yuan per
semester, but the Chinese students paid nothing. I couldn't
understand this, but when a group of Tibetans complained,
we were told that the school was really just for Chinese
and that we were lucky to be there."
In the Community schools set up in the poorer rural areas,
Tibetans continue to find themselves subject to a number of
‘miscellaneous' fees enforced to supplement low teacher's
salaries and to cover the running costs of the school
buildings - expenses which should now be covered by the
local government.
Buchung,
a young nomad from Damshung County in Lhasa Municipality,
arrived in India on the 30 January 2000. "I attended the
community primary school in my village for one year, but
left because we had to bring so many things from home to
give to the school. We had to bring our own food every day,
money to buy the school equipment - even a big sack of
firewood to keep the school warm in winter. Sometimes we
weren't even told where our money was going. There were
no official fees as such, but we were always pushed to
‘donate' money and materials to the school, and my family
eventually decided that they couldn't afford to give any
more, so I had to leave."
One
Tibetan parent
interviewed on August 7 1996, reported a number of
miscellaneous charges made at the Lhasa State primary
school where her child was studying. "Recently children
have been told that they have to stay after class to do
their homework in the classroom. Then parents are told
they have to pay 15 yuan per month for the use of the
classroom. Sometimes children are made to stay at school
until 9 o'clock in the evening. I often see parents waiting
for their children outside the school when it is already
dark. The problem is that teachers have very low salaries
and so they need to find ways of supplementing it, and
this is one of the ways in which they do that.
Another way is in the distribution of vaccinations and
medicine to children. Last year, my son was told he had to
have a certain number of vaccinations. We told the school
that we had already had him vaccinated, but the school
told us that we had to pay for the vaccinations anyway."
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Discriminatory Facilities --> ]
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