Conclusion


CHAPTER 7


It is undeniable that the People's Republic of China has improved the public school facilities in Tibet in recent years. However it is crucial to identify who exactly is receiving the benefits of these new facilities. In order to cater to the huge influx of Chinese settlers being enticed into Tibet by the Chinese authorities there was an immediate need to provide schools for the children of the settlers. Thus the majority of new schools have been built in the cities and urban areas where the Chinese live.

Roughly one third of the school-aged children in Tibet continue to receive no education at all. This is not due solely to the remoteness of some Tibetan regions, an argument frequently invoked by the PRC, but also to the prohibitively high school fees charged by the Chinese authorities. The vast majority of the interviewed Tibetan students had to pay extremely high school fees and even primary school education is not free, despite claims by the PRC.

Even when a child can afford the fees, bribes and other charges, they must frequently confront blatant discrimination making it difficult or impossible to qualify for secondary or tertiary education.

Moreover, it is not enough to simply look at the figures touted by the PRC regarding numbers of educational institutions but to consider more closely the actual content of the schooling in these institutions. It is evident from the children's own accounts that they benefitted little from school lessons taught in a language they could not understand or from idle class time passed without a teacher.

Tibetan children receive virtually no education on their indigenous Tibetan culture and history at the public schools in Tibet. The phasing out of Tibetan language in Tibetan schools and universities indicates the intention of Chinese authorities to deny students the right to be taught in their mother tongue. In an attempt to "sinocise" the Tibetan people, children are targeted for indoctrination; their freedom of thought, religion and expression repressed.

If the education of the Tibetan children in Tibet continues in this way the chance of the unique and ancient Tibetan culture surviving even another generation is grim. As in any society, the children are the key to its future, and, based on the current state of affairs with regard to education, the future of Tibetan children seems to be one of undereducation, unemployment and ignorance of their Tibetan heritage. This situation serves several purposes: to keep Tibetans out of positions of economic power or political influence; to utilise Tibetan labour for the infrastructure construction required for Tibet's Chinese-engineered "economic boom"; and to assimilate the Tibetans into the great "motherland" of China.

Genuine improvements to the state of education in Tibet on the part of the Chinese authorities would undoubtedly be welcomed by the Tibetan people. However, this report indicates that Chinese-sponsored "education development" in Tibet not only fails often to benefit the Tibetans themselves, it is also being used as a political tool to strip Tibetans of their cultural rights and dignity.

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Last updated: 29-Sept-97