About a million children of the Tibetan minority are being affected by Chinese government policies aimed at assimilating them culturally, religiously, and linguistically through a residential school system, UN experts said Monday.
“We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale program intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” the experts said.
In residential schools, the content and environment focus on the majority Han culture, with textbook content reflecting almost solely the lived experience of Han students.
Children of the Tibetan minority are forced to complete a “compulsory education” curriculum in Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) without access to traditional or culturally relevant learning, they said.
Putonghua language governmental schools do not offer a substantive study of the Tibetan language, history, and culture.
“As a result, Tibetan children are losing their facility with their native language and the ability to communicate easily with their parents and grandparents in the Tibetan language, which contributes to their assimilation and erosion of their identity,” the experts said.
They raised concerns about a reported increase in the number of residential schools operating in and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region and the number of Tibetan children living there.
The experts are Fernand de Varennes, UN special rapporteur on minority issues; Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to education; and Alexandra Xanthaki, special rapporteur on cultural rights.
Source: Anadolu Agency