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Tibetan education conference slams China’s ‘assimilative’ policies
The statement added that Chinese government’s policies in Tibet ‘fundamentally conflicted’ with the aspirations of the Tibetan people
The participants of 8th Tibetan general conference on education condemned China’s ‘assimilative’ policies and called for an immediate end to them, a statement issued on Friday by Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said.
The statement added that Chinese government’s policies in Tibet ‘fundamentally conflicted’ with the aspirations of the Tibetan people.
“Particularly, the education policy is being weaponised to impose Chinese Communist ideology,” the statement said.
The conference, which was organised by Dharamshala-based CTA’s department of education, began on January 7 and culminated on January 9.
The participants said that under China’s agenda of ‘Sinicizing’ Tibet, approximately one million Tibetan children have been forcibly admitted into state-run boarding schools, separating them from their parents and ancestral language and culture. “The medium of instruction in these schools has been changed to Chinese... recently, it has planned to make the Tibetan language optional in middle and high school examinations, effectively denying Tibetan youth opportunities for higher education and employment, and making it impossible for them to preserve their national identity,” the statement added.
It said, “As these actions violate fundamental human rights, we condemn the Chinese government’s hardline policies in Tibet and call for an immediate end to them.”
“Although Tibetans-in-exile constitute only a small fraction of the total population, we have achieved remarkable success in preserving and promoting Tibetan religion, culture and language under the leadership of the 14th Dalai Lama” they said, urging all Tibetans living in free countries to value the guidance of the Dalai Lama.
