[lg policy] TIBET: Language policy threatens tertiary access

Mon Nov 15 15:13:11 UTC 2010

TIBET: Language policy threatens tertiary access

Yojana Sharma
14 November 2010
Issue: 147

Recent protests by students against the downgrading of the Tibetan
language as a medium of instruction in schools and colleges were
backed by teachers. But the authorities insist that a Chinese medium
education will help minority groups to secure more jobs and places in
universities.
The Dalai Lama, on a visit to Japan in early November, said: "We love
our language and we are proud of our language." He added: "Chinese
authority has imposed Chinese language as a medium of instruction in
Tibetan schools which caused demonstrations."

Lobsang Sangay, a senior fellow at Harvard Law School and a candidate
in upcoming elections for prime minister of the Tibetan government in
exile, said language was a matter of identity for Tibetans. He added
that the language issue had broader implications for the education and
employment prospects of Tibetans, with resentment building up over
lack of opportunities. "The situation in Tibet is still tense and more
or less under martial law," making it difficult for Tibetans to speak
out, Sangay told University World News. However, "the demonstrations
follow a new emphasis in Qinghai province on the importance of the
Chinese language."

The protests in Qinghai province in western China were sparked by an
order that all lessons and textbooks should be in Chinese in primary
schools by 2015 as part of a government policy to "help Tibetans
integrate into Chinese society and find better jobs". In particular
the authorities want to narrow the gap between education levels in
western China, including Qinghai, and China's coastal areas. An open
letter issued by the Qinghai provincial government to all teachers and
students on 22 October said the goal of the new policy was to "bridge
the education gap between China's various ethnic groups and promote
development in ethnic minority areas".

The protests later spread to Beijing's Minzu University for minorities
(formerly Central University for Nationalities), and groups monitoring
Tibet and other minority areas suggested the protests were more
widespread than admitted eventually in official media. Tibetan sources
said one factor behind the protests was resentment over a lack of
places in universities and poor job prospects when students graduated.

While anxiety over jobs has grown among students and graduates all
over China, prospects for Tibetans are particularly poor because of
the dominance of the Chinese language for all jobs and employer
discrimination against Tibetan job-seekers even in Tibetan-speaking
areas.
In September several hundred Tibetan graduates at the Institute of
Tibetan Traditional Medicine protested in front of the Tibet
Autonomous Region Offices in Lhasa, demanding an increase in
employment opportunities for Tibetans, the International Campaign for
Tibet reported.

And memories have not faded over the creation of 100 new government
jobs for graduates in Tibet four years ago, when only two posts were
assigned to Tibetan graduates and the rest went to Han Chinese,
sparking protests at Lhasa University.

"The new education measures will make finding work even more difficult
for those Tibetan university students who will be seeking employment
as teachers in the Tibetan language," said Tsering Dorje, a teacher
based in Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government in exile.

Hundreds of Tibetan schoolteachers signed a petition sent to the
Qinghai provincial government in October, demanding the preservation
of Tibetan as the medium of instruction in schools.

"Tibetan students have studied Chinese for 10 or more years, from
elementary school until upper middle school - but they are still
unable to communicate in Chinese," the petition said.

It went on to say: "The choice of which language is used for
instruction should be decided entirely upon which language is not an
obstacle to the student's studies. An individual's wisdom and their
ability to analyse problems is intimately connected to the development
of their language abilities."

Before, few Tibetans could go to university because they did not do
well in the national competitive entrance examination, which was in
Chinese. Then the education ministry set up special classes for
minorities and allowed local education departments to hold their own
entrance exams.

By 2005 the average number of students enrolled in colleges and
universities in the Tibetan Autonomous Region was 1,139 per 100,000
people or 1.4%, according to official figures, compared with other
provinces with low university enrolments such as Guizhou (838 per
100,000), Yunnan, the province bordering on Vietnam with many hill
tribes (904), and Qinghai (905). The national average in 2005 was
1,613.

Officials claimed the policies extended opportunities for Tibetans,
without lowering the quality of higher education in the provinces.

But Sangay pointed out that less than 5% of Tibetan students attended
universities in China. "At the top universities like Peking, Tsinghua
and Fudan, there are a dozen Tibetan students at most. Even at Minzu,
around 6,000 [or about half the student body] students are Han," he
said. "They are not minorities at all."

"If they really want to increase the number of Tibetans entering
university they can start by giving Tibetans more places and increase
the number of seats for minorities in Beijing," Sangay said.

Even at the University of Lhasa, where the medium of instruction for
most subjects, including the history of Tibet, is Chinese, 50% of
students are Han Chinese. And at the School of Agriculture and Animal
Husbandry "supposedly established for Tibetans in Tibet" the majority
are also Han Chinese," Sangay said.

"It begs the questions of who is really being educated in Tibet."

According to the non-governmental organisation, Tibet Poverty
Alleviation Fund, widely regarded as reliable on research in Tibet,
70% of private sector jobs and half of all public sector jobs go to
Han Chinese in the region. Meanwhile some 40% of Tibetans are
unemployed in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

The policy to teach only in Chinese will disadvantage Tibetans, as it
replaces a commitment for schools to be bilingual. "In the past
teaching only in Chinese was not possible because [the authorities]
could not convince [Han] Chinese teachers to come to teach in the
remoter areas and villages," said Sangay.

"But what this now means is they are throwing out national bilingual
education and mandating the Chinese language. It is sinisisation. It
is part of their policy of assimilation [of Tibetans] at the cultural
level," he continued.

"With this sinisisation, Tibetans cannot possibly compete with Han
Chinese, who will always speak and write the language better, and they
will lose their own identity which they gain through Tibetan."

Sangay cited Article 4 of the Chinese Constitution and Article 37 of
the 1984 Minority Nationality Act that clearly indicate the language
of each nationality should be the medium of instruction in schools and
in government wherever minorities are dominant.

This has been followed in the Uigur and Mongolian regions, Sangay
said, where the medium of instruction in schools and colleges is Uigur
and Mongolian respectively.

"Tibetan language education must be promoted. That's what the laws and
constitution clearly say. Language is one aspect of a much bigger
issue of why Tibetans don't get good higher education and better
jobs," Sangay argued.

yojana.sharma at uw-news.com

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20101113055452298

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