Violations concerning access to education


CHAPTER 3


A. DENIAL OF ANY EDUCATION

    Article 28 of the CRC:

    1. States Parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:

    a) make primary education compulsory and available free to all; 26

Education should allow each member of a given society to participate equally and effectively in the social, economic and political life of his or her society. This fact is applicable throughout the world in every kind of society, irrespective of political system or ideology. The PRC acknowledges in its Constitution that "Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the duty as well as the right to receive education"27 and the Compulsory Education Act claims that; "[t]he State, community, schools and families shall, in accordance with the law, safeguard the right of the children and adolescents to compulsory education appropriate to their age."28

The right of the child to education, as laid down in the CRC, implies that primary education is compulsory for every child living in the territory of States Parties to the Convention. The principle of compulsory education implies that it is in the child's best interests that he or she is required to receive education up to that minimum level. Hence States Parties have the obligation to prevent the situation in which a child does not attend any primary schooling.

Interviews conducted with Tibetan children revealed that in all regions of Tibet children are refused the right to education. China itself acknowledges that 30 per cent of children in Tibet receive no education at all (independent organisations put this figure at 40 per cent29) while the corresponding figure for Chinese children only reaches 1.5 per cent.30

One reason given by the Chinese authorities for this disparity is the remoteness of some Tibetan regions, however the children interviewed revealed that this was not the sole cause. The main factor preventing Tibetan children from attending any school was an economic one; many children did in fact live near a school, but the school fees charged by the authorities were so prohibitively high that the parents could simply not afford to send their children to school. There were also cases where parents could initially afford the school fees but later had to take their children out of school as they were no longer able to afford the required fees. This is a clear violation of the Convention's requirement that primary education should be free and accessible for every child.

    "The reason for the fact that no one of our family went to school was that the school fees were too high for my parents. The lobchung (primary school) in our village cost 200 yuan a month. My parents could have never afforded that." (A 20)

    "At school the teachers demanded 50 yuan a month to sit on a chair, 50 yuan to have a table and another 25 yuan for the books. My father was a lorry driver for the Chinese government. He received only 50 yuan a month. For this money we had to buy a sack of tsampa (roasted barley) to have some food. So my parents could not afford to send me to school." (A 23)

    "My parents did not send me to school, because it was too expensive for them. The school fees for Tibetan children were about 500 yuan a month. Chinese children did not have to pay anything." (A 21)

    "There was a school in the village, but no one from my family [10 children] could go there. It was simply too expensive for my parents to pay 200 yuan per month per child. My whole family has never had any education at all." (A21)

    "My parents could not pay the school fees for me but the authorities did not make school free for me. I had friends who went to school. I would have liked to go to school." (A23)

In its Written Replies to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the PRC claims that it aims to boost primary education in Tibet.31 However in some cases it is the Chinese school authorities themselves who knowingly accept that Tibetans are not able to attend primary school due to monetary reasons:

    "About once a month the Chinese soldiers came to our village for inspection. In our village there were about 20 children of whom two went to school. The rest of us worked on the fields or looked after the cattle all day. As part of their inspection the Chinese took some animals away and collected money from the village. They saw us children working in the fields all day. They have never told us that we should have gone to school." (A19)

    "When I was eight years old, my mother decided that it was time for me to go to school. My admission to enter school was refused by the Chinese authorities. They said I could not go to school because my family had no relationships with the Chinese government. What they meant was that no one from my family worked for the Chinese government. The Chinese told us that I could only enter the primary school if we paid an enormously high entrance fee of about 10,000 yuan [equivalent to approximately US $ 1250]. Of course my family could not afford that. So I could not go to school." (A28)

    "I lived in a village with two hundred Tibetan families and no Chinese. There was no school in our village, not even a primary school. The next school was a whole day's walk away. It was a boarding school but this school was very expensive. In my family - I had five brothers and two sisters - no one ever went to school. Of the 10 children in the village only two went to school. The Chinese authorities never did anything to change the situation in our village." (A26)

In the same Written Replies the PRC claims that it is changing the situation by building many new primary schools in Tibet. While this action is generally to be welcomed it does not necessarily mean that the schooling situation for Tibetan children is improving. With the massive, state-sponsored influx of Chinese, these new settlers require new schools. These newly built schools with their modern facilities are largely withheld from Tibetan children.


B. DENIAL OF FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION

Prior to the 20th century education was a privilege of the rich. Today it is commonly recognised in international conventions and national constitutions that free primary education is of benefit to all members of the society. Everyone should at least be able to read, to write and to calculate and every member of a society should have the same chance to take a responsible part in his or her society. Article 28(1) of the CRC states:

    States Parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
    a) make primary education compulsory and available free to all;

The principle of free primary education applies particularly to countries like China where there is a wide range of income. Primary education should be available to all, regardless of their personal economic situation, and China itself acknowledges in national legislation that compulsory education (in which the State includes education at the primary and the junior middle school level) shall be free of tuition fees.32

For Tibetans, free education has an even greater importance as they tend to be economically marginalised in their country. The average income of Tibetans in Tibet is much lower than that of the Chinese settlers and thus the imposition of school fees in Tibet has a far greater negative impact on Tibetans there.

The testimonies revealed that the requirement to provide free compulsory education to all is being violated throughout Tibet. Only 17 percent of the interviewed students who had received primary education in Tibet were not required to pay any school fees to the Chinese authorities. Thus, contrary to the PRC's claim that compulsory education is free of charge and that only "miscellaneous expenses are payable"33, 83 percent of the interviewed students did in fact have to pay school fees.

Primary school fees paid varied from between 20 to over 6000 yuan a year. In 31 percent of the interviewed cases, students had to pay more than 500 yuan in primary school fees a year.


Yearly school fees paid by Tibetan students

Yuans Percent
no fee 17
1-99 7
100-249 21
250-499 24
500-99 7
more than 1000 24

Chinese authorities state that the average per capita yearly income in 1992 in rural areas was only 784 yuan.34 Given that Tibet is undoubtedly a poor rural area, the levied school fees are disturbingly high. As stated, in some cases high school fees meant that parents could not afford to send their children to school at all.

    "My parents had to pay 500 yuan as a general entrance fee for my lobchung school. They also had to pay 50 yuan each year and then every day that I did not come to school they had to pay an additional 50 yuan." (A 12)

Not only did most of the Tibetan school children have to pay very high school fees, it appears that at the same time the Chinese students (who visited the same school in the same grade) had to pay little or no school fees.

    "We had to pay much higher fees than the Chinese. While we had to pay 70 yuan for 6 months, the Chinese students only had to pay 20 yuan." (A 13)

    "The school fees for Tibetan children were about 500 yuan a month. Chinese children did not have to pay anything." (A 21)

    "My parents had to pay 300 yuan per month for my school fees while the Chinese parents did not have to pay any school fees. Also the Chinese students received their food from the school, while my parents had to bring or give me the food so that I could eat during the school week." (A 10)

Some children were able to attend school, despite the economic hurdles of tuition fees, only to have to pay extra money in bribes and other miscellaneous fees to their school teacher.

China has reported that the "miscellaneous expenses" payable are "usually quite low for the compulsory education" and are charged mainly to cover the cost of teaching materials". China quotes a figure of 14 to 25 yuan as the amount of miscellaneous expenses paid by an average student and declares that where, in poor areas, households find it hard to cover the miscellaneous expenses themselves, "local governments have all adopted a policy of waiving such expenses for them and offering student grants for children from families facing extreme financial difficulties."35

None of the Tibetan children interviewed reported any such waiving or grants. Thirty-nine percent of the interviewed students who had attended school in Tibet reported that they had to pay bribes to their teachers or the authorities:

    "My parents regularly gave bed sheets, food and snacks to the teachers, so that the teachers would be pleased. I do not know what would have happened if my parents would not have given these presents to the teachers." (A 11)

    "I had to pay for my books and food, for my table and chair, and for the brooms in the classroom ... I also had to pay bribes to my teachers. I gave them cards, flowers, meat and butter and for the teachers' holiday we had to pay 90 yuan each. I had to buy my own school uniform." (A42)

    "Every year I had to pay 300 yuan school fees and an additional 15 yuan for each month. If there was a broken window, or a new broom for the classroom was needed, the teachers collected money from the Tibetan students to pay for this. The Chinese students never had to pay anything. My father is dead and my mother was a beggar, so we never had a lot of money. When there was no money to pay the amounts the teacher demanded, I was afraid that the Chinese teacher would beat me up. So I would go to town and steal the money I needed." (A6)

    "At Chinese festival days we had to bring clothes, food and money for the Chinese students. The Chinese students did not have to bring anything." (A2)

    "Every month we had to give presents to the teachers: one pound of butter, one pound of cheese and meat. If the parents did not provide these things the teacher was much stricter with the child." (A18)

    "The school fee was 150 yuan a year but we also had to give the teachers presents. Sometimes my mother went to school and gave the teachers a whole cartoon of some alcohol. The teachers could not force us to give these presents, but if we did not give them then the teacher would target us and we would be made to be unhappy in school." (A27)


C. ACCESS TO SECONDARY EDUCATION

Education is one of the measurements of a society's economic and social success. Conversely, as a society develops further and further, educational requirements similarly escalate. The CRC makes this link by allowing the development of secondary education to be progressively established.

    Art. 28(1): States Parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
    b) encourage the development of different forms of secondary education, including general and vocational education, make them available and accessible to every child, and take appropriate measures such as the introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need. 36

The CRC clearly stipulates that secondary education should be available to every child on the basis of equal opportunity. The testimonials illustrate that this is not the case in Tibet. The first inequality is based on economic factors as, based on the children's accounts, secondary education is extremely expensive in Tibet. This in itself does not represent a violation of the CRC, since it requires only that States Parties provide free secondary education progressively. However, since the Tibetan population in Tibet has a much lower average income than the Chinese population, school fees place a far higher burden on a Tibetan family than a Chinese family. None of the children referred to any case whereby a Tibetan received financial assistance from the PRC.

The second widespread inequality with regard to the right to secondary education is represented by the middle school (lobdring) entry examination. These entry examinations have the ostensible purpose of selecting students with the greatest academic capacity, yet the students report that they are used in Tibet to bar Tibetans from entering middle schools and to enrich the school officials.

The primary barrier to passing the examination is language. Interviewees stated that most of the entrance examinations are held completely or mostly in Chinese language. This means that Tibetans, for whom the Chinese is a foreign language, have less chance of achieving a satisfactory result than their Chinese peers.

Even if a Tibetan student has a sufficient command of the Chinese language and passes the entrance examination, this does not mean that he or she will necessarily be accepted at the school. Many students reported that it was not the academic capacity which decided whether he or she would attend a middle school but rather the amount of bribes the parents were willing and able to pay. In many cases it was not the brightest students who were admitted to the middle schools but those who paid the most money. This violates the right of admission on the basis of equal opportunity by discriminating mainly against the Tibetan children whose average family income is much lower than that of Chinese in Tibet.

    "Since I did not speak any Chinese, I could not visit a lobdring middle school. I would have never passed the entry examination which was in Chinese." (A6)

    "After my primary school I probably would not have been admitted to a middle school because my Chinese was not good enough. In order to pass the entrance exam for the middle school one has to be very good in Chinese." (A25)

    "The chances for the Chinese students to enter a good middle school were better [than for Tibetans]. For them the Chinese language is their mother tongue; for the Tibetans the Chinese language is a second language." (A43)

    "The entry exams for the lobdring were made by Chinese for Chinese. If Tibetans wanted to get into the lobdring they had to bribe the teachers. Only the children of Tibetans working for the Chinese government did not have to pay any bribes." (A3)

    "In order to be admitted to the lobdring I had to pay a lot of bribes. First I had to bring presents for the head of the school to pass the entry examination. Later I had to bring presents to the teachers. These were all expensive presents: alcohol, spirits, fruit, perfume and that sort of thing." (A 2)

    "To enter the lobdring middle school we had to pass entry exams. Everybody who took this exam had to write his name in pencil at the top of the exam sheet. If there was a brilliant Tibetan student, the Chinese teacher would erase the Tibetan name and put a Chinese name instead. When you paid bribes, you were sure to pass the exams, no matter how good you were." (A9)

    "I attended a lobdring middle school for one year. In order to be accepted at my lobdring school I had to pass an entrance exam in Chinese, Tibetan and maths. I felt that the chances for the Chinese students to be accepted at my lobdring were much better because the parents of the Chinese students paid bribes to the teachers in order to pass the exam. So it was not the result of the exam that counted but the amount of money paid by Chinese parents to specific teachers. In the case where a Chinese student had an exam result which was not as good as that of a Tibetan student, the Chinese student was nonetheless placed above the Tibetan." (A10)

    "I felt that the chances for Chinese students to attend a lobdring were higher than for the Tibetans. The Chinese students were often given better marks. I would say that the Chinese had perhaps a 80% chance to enter a lobdring while the chance of the Tibetans was only 20%." (A2)

The use of guanxi (connections) to get children admitted in Tibetan schools means that many low-achieving students from China are able in this way to enrol, unofficially, in the final year of Tibetan secondary schools in order to pass the secondary school graduation examination which is much lower in Tibet than in China.

These Chinese students consequently improve their chances of getting a place at university (where again the entrance examination is far less difficult than for Chinese universities) or a good job in urban areas. This influx of poor standard secondary school students further lowers the academic levels of secondary education in Tibet in addition to draining scarce resources.


D. ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has acknowledged the importance of higher education access for Tibetan children, recommending that the PRC "ensure their [the Tibetan students] access to higher education on an equal footing." 37 The CRC states:

    Art. 28(1): States Parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
    c) make higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means; 38

As this report focuses on children (ie. under the age of 18 years), only one testimony relating to higher education was collected from the students interviewed:

    "Problems arose as I wanted to attend further education. The Chinese authorities did not allow me to participate in the entrance exam for a school in Lhasa. They told me that I could not do my entrance exam because my parents were Tibetan nomads and they did not have a ration card.39 I felt that they treated me unfairly because many Chinese students who had lower marks than mine were able to go on with their studies. They were allowed to do the entrance exam because they had Chinese relatives in school or because their parents were rich and paid bribes to the school. The marks did not matter for further studies; it was the money and the connections that counted." (A34)

It is clear from other reports that even at the level of tertiary education Tibetan language is being eliminated. Sources in Lhasa have reported a recent decision that the Tibetan Language Department of the University of Tibet in Lhasa will not take any new students for the academic year of 1997-98.39 The reason given by the university authorities is that the syllabus is being changed and the new books required have not yet been compiled. This decision follows policy changes announced by Chinese authorities in December 1996 that the university's History of Tibet course, taught by the Tibetan Language Department, would henceforth be taught in Chinese rather than Tibetan.41

A long-standing requirement that all students pass an entrance examination in Tibetan is also said to have been dropped this year and all except one of the 17 university courses are now taught in Chinese.42 These new policies come despite the fact that 80 percent of students and many of the teachers at the University of Tibet are Tibetan. They ignore both the stipulation included in the 1987 legislation that "after the year 2000" most lectures in tertiary institutions should "gradually" be in Tibetan, and one of the reasons listed for the founding of the University - "the maintenance and development of Tibetan culture and language".

The use of guanxi continues in the four modern universities in Tibet (Tibet University, the Institute of Nationalities, the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College and the Tibetan Medical College). While these institutions were established to educate Tibetans, all except the Tibetan Medical Institute have a disproportionate representation of Chinese in the student body.

Systematic discrimination in favour of Chinese students is also evident in the division of courses. In Tibet University, modern subjects such as science courses are allocated 60% of seats although there are only 40% of the total applicants opting for the science course.43 Such courses are typically preferred by the Chinese students while arts or humanities are predominantly left for Tibetans.

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Last updated: 29-Sept-97