Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, May 29: A newly released report by the Tibet Action Institute (TAI), titled “When They Came to Take Our Children: China’s Colonial Boarding Schools and the Future of Tibet”, has brought to light the expanding system of Chinese government-run boarding schools in Tibet, where Tibetan children are subjected to abuse, negligence, political indoctrination, and the erasure of their cultural identity.
Building on its landmark 2021 investigation, “Separated from Their Families, Hidden from the World”, which revealed that between 800,000 to 900,000 Tibetan children aged six to eighteen—and at least 100,000 preschool-aged children have been placed in these institutions, the new report offers rare firsthand accounts from individuals inside Tibet and recent escapees. The testimonies describe how the Chinese government is deepening its assimilation policies by curbing children’s access to the Tibetan language and culture even during holidays and school breaks.
Among the most alarming revelations are accounts of physical and psychological abuse, with some cases resulting in death. One incident, captured on school surveillance footage and later removed from Chinese internet platforms, shows a teacher violently assaulting a student with a chair at Chamdo No. 1 Elementary School in Kham province in 2021. A government investigation, prompted by public outrage, confirmed the child sustained a three-inch gash to the forehead.
The report also highlighted the emotional toll of forced separation from families and communities. Tibetan-medium education is being systematically dismantled, and local Tibetan-run or village schools have been forcibly closed in recent years, leaving families no alternative but to enroll their children in state-run boarding schools. This process, the report said, is deliberately designed to sever children’s ties to their language, culture, and identity, causing profound psychological harm including attachment trauma, anxiety, and cultural alienation.
“China’s colonial boarding schools are meant to indoctrinate, not educate Tibetan children,” said education expert Dr. Gyal Lo, a Tibetan educational sociologist who fled Tibet and China in 2020 and is a current Tibet Specialist at TAI. “The testimonies in the report confirm my research and my own family’s experience: The Chinese authorities are deliberately taking our children away and disconnecting them from their roots. Within a generation our language and culture could be lost, all because the Chinese government sees Tibetan identity as a threat to its control of our nation.”
TAI has condemned the system as a violation of both Chinese domestic law and international legal standards, particularly those concerning the rights of indigenous peoples and children. The report called on the United Nations and world governments to urgently press China to launch an independent public investigation into the abuses and deaths reported at these schools, address the mental health crisis facing Tibetan children, abolish the coercive boarding school system, and support Tibetan children’s right to high-quality, mother tongue education in their own communities and homes.
The report presents a dire warning that the future of Tibetan identity is under threat from China’s assimilationist education policies and urges immediate international action to protect Tibetan children from further harm.
