Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 27: As schools across Tibet resume classes following the winter holiday, Chinese authorities have intensified their patriotic education campaign, further suppressing Tibetan language and cultural identity, according to a report by Radio Free Asia. The campaign includes stricter political indoctrination measures and heightened restrictions on Tibetan Buddhism within educational institutions.
Since late February, primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens, have reopened in most parts of Tibet. Teachers and students are now required to engage in state-mandated political education that reinforces allegiance to the Chinese government. Teachers must submit monthly self-reports to higher authorities confirming they are not imparting religious teachings, while both students and staff are compelled to renounce religious beliefs and practices within school premises. These measures were revealed by two sources inside Tibet who spoke with RFA.
The crackdown extends across multiple Tibetan regions, including Ngaba, Kardze, Malho, Sangchu County, Yak Nga, Dzoge, Kyungchu, Barkham, Dzod, Chabcha County, and Trika County. A source familiar with the situation stated that in primary schools in Kardze and Ngaba, mathematics and science have already transitioned to Chinese-language instruction. The remaining Tibetan language courses in some schools are now being eliminated. Many Tibetan language teachers have reportedly been dismissed under the pretext of failing to meet Chinese language proficiency standards.
Meanwhile, official government announcements confirm that schools in Lhasa and other areas of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region are set to reopen between March 8 and 10, following the Tibetan New Year. Authorities have issued multiple directives concerning security and health inspections in preparation for the reopening.
On February 25, a new directive titled “Two Absolute Prohibitions and Five Strictly Forbidden Items” was issued, further reinforcing bans on religious practices within the education system. The directive explicitly forbids any form of religious promotion in schools, prohibits individuals or organizations from incorporating religious elements into curricula, bars teachers and students from engaging in religious activities, and bans religious symbols or attire on school grounds.
Each year, school reopenings in Tibet are accompanied by heightened government surveillance and control. In 2024, schools in Dartsedo implemented new restrictions preventing parents from entering school premises, while authorities continued to modify curricula without informing families.
The latest push to diminish Tibetan-language education follows years of escalating restrictions aimed at erasing Tibet’s linguistic and cultural identity. In the 2023 fall semester, Tibetan language courses were entirely removed from middle schools in the Kardze region, while Ngaba saw a systematic reduction of Tibetan-medium instruction. Similarly, in the 2022 winter semester, all public schools in counties across Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Amdo (Ch. Qinghai) Province transitioned to Chinese-language instruction, leaving only a single Tibetan language course. This shift extended to all subjects, including mathematics, science, arts, and arithmetic, which are now exclusively taught in Chinese.
One Response
Communist China is hell bent to destroy Tibetan language, religion and culture! The policy was put into practice right from the beginning but it intensified during the cultural revolution! The red guards went on a rampage to systematically destroy every Buddhist monastery, statue, མ་ཎེ་ལྷ་ཁང་ མ་ཎེ་འཁོར་ལོ་ (mani rooms where gigantic mani wheels are kept, manis that adorn every monastery or stupa. These manis are in the thousands as you can see around the stupas of Boudanath and Syambunath stupas (བྱ་རུང་ཁ་ཤོར་དང་ འཕགས་པ་ཤིང་ཀུན) in Kathmandu valley! There are holy stupas every where in Tibet since Tibetans are deeply devout Buddhists! They destroyed everything and made Tibet a wasteland that was no different from Gaza today! Tibetans had to either throw their precious statues and holy relics into the rivers, bury them underneath the ground or take them to distant caves to hide them. If the red guards sees them, they are often beaten to death or imprisoned for holding “superstitious ideas” or “old ideas”. In the prison, every religious object was confiscated and they didn’t even allow to keep the mala འཕྲེང་བ་ which is every Tibetan Buddhist’s treasured possession. They were forbidden to say any prayers since everything to do with Buddhism was said to be “superstition” and according to Chinese communist propaganda, “religion was used as a tool to oppress the people”. So, every article of faith was a hated object according to the Chinese communists! A long time prisoner told me, he made knots as if they are beads on a thick thread and used it to say his prayers with when everybody went to sleep. Tibetans were forbidden to wear their traditional dresses known as chuba! Everyone, whether male or female were forced to wear baggy Mao suits and hold Mao’s red book to declare their allegiance to the CCP! They were forced to study “Mao thoughts” as part of the indoctrination. That policy wasn’t enough to eradicate Tibetan Buddhism. Since, 1979, it made a come back during the so called liberalization policy. Now, it has found a new tactic which is to abduct all children from the young age of four and instill in them the cult of Chinese communism to love the CCP above everything else including giving “ones life for the party”!!! These children are the STOLEN CHILDREN OF TIBET! They may look like Tibetans but they are Chinese in their outlook, their brhsviour, their customs and language. There is little to differentiate these Tibetans from a Chinese! They are the cross-breed between Chinese and Tibetan culture! They will not fit either among the Chinese nor the Tibetan community. They will become the rejects of Han chauvinist revisionist policies of the CCP. The ultimate goal of the evil CCP is to stamp out Buddhism and its influence in occupied Tibet. This is because without erasing Buddhism and it’s holistic ideas, it is finding hard to plant the seeds of ruthless and violent communist ideology which glorifies violence and intimidation as tools of revolution and conquest of those that are inimical to communist orthodoxy! The core idea is to built a population that worships the CCP and compliant to its dictates. In order to achieve this, all other ideas must be subsumed as it obstructs the indoctrination process and hence regarded as pollutants! The goal of CCP is to destroy all forms of religious beliefs that poses a challenge to the supremacy of Marxism/Leninism and Maoism! TIBETAN BUDDHISM WILL NOT SURVIVE UNDER COMMUNIST CHINESE OCCUPATION! There will be no young men or women who would wish to take the robes after such anti-religious indoctrination in colonial boarding schools or Chinese schools in general!