More Tibetan Students Will Be Educated in China

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated two posts about the recent announcements made in Amdo concerning a new policy on the education of Tibetan students. Amdo's Tsolho (Ch: Hainan) Prefecture is located in the northern part of Qinghai province.

In the early 1980s, the Chinese government introduced a new programme in the Tibet Autonomous Region called the "Inland (neidi) Tibet Schools", a preferential education policy that established schools and classes in cities outside of the TAR in the central and eastern part of China.

A "new and important initiative" was introduced during the "Fifth Tibet Work Forum" held in Beijing on January 18-20, 2010, which according to the summary of the Forum found on the site of Congressional Executive Commission on China is:

"The Fifth Forum introduced a new and important initiative: establishing the coordinated implementation of Party and government policies on Tibetan issues in an area that will include not just the Tibet Autonomous Region, but also Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties located in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. The expanded area is contiguous and approximately doubles the number of Tibetans who live within the forum policy area."

Having been confined to the TAR, the posts below are an indication that the policy is now being implemented outside the TAR as well. For readers interested in this topic of neidi schooling, the following publication is recommended: "State Schooling and Ethnic Identity: The Politics of a Tibetan Neidi Secondary School in China" by Zhiyong Zhu.

Eighty Students from Tsolho Prefecture will be Sent to Jiangsu To Study

August 31, 2011

http://www.amdotibet.cn/html/dt/whjy/2011-08/11465.html

According to recent information released by the Tsolho Prefecture Government of Qinghai Province, the Education Department of Jiangsu Province agreed to aid the development of education in Tsolho Prefecture.  In September, eighty middle school students from Tsolho will be sent to Jiangsu to study.

The main point of the agreement is that the Education Department of Jiangsu Province will build a school in Nanjing for the Tibetans and Jiangsu province will provide the funding to maintain the school.  Tsolho Prefectural Government agreed to annually send eighty of the best students to Jiangsu in China with a Tibetan language teacher and two other administrators.

It has been reported that during the 12th Five Year Plan, Jiangsu Province will help the local government of Tsolho to build a high-school for two thousand students and kindergartens in various districts for three hundred children.

Five Hundred Students from Poor Families in Tsolho Prefecture of Qinghai Province will be Sent to China's Shandong Province

August 31, 2011

http://www.qhtb.cn/news/social/2011-08-31/1764.html

According to reports on August 29 in the media, Tsolho Autonomous Prefecture education department has reached an understanding that within the next five years, five thousand Tibetan students from both middle and high schools will be sent to Shandong Province to receive vocational skills training. On August 30, five hundred students from poor families of the prefecture were sent to Qufu Secondary Normal School and Dongping Vocational School in Shandong respectively.

In order to implement the spirit of the Central Party’s Fifth Meeting on Tibet Work, the Confucius Professional Centre, under the direction of United Front Department of the Party, has made arrangements. In July, the working relationship between the Confucius Education Trust and Tibetan Prefecture of Tsolho was established to promote development. From September this year, the Confucius Professional Centre will start a training program for five hundred students. The Confucius Centre will meet  all the expenses including tuition fees, accommodation and food for the students.

The understanding is that the Confucius Professional Centre is planning to invest 72 Million Yuan to build a vocational school in the prefecture of Tsolho.