With the start of winter school break in Tibet, Chinese authorities have implemented new restrictions on Tibetan children, banning private Tibetan-language lessons and requiring ones that focus on Mandarin skills and Chinese political topics, two sources with knowledge of the situation said.
In some areas, they are even forbidding children from wearing religious symbols or participating in religious activities, since the winter break began on Dec. 30, said the sources who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
The restrictions are the latest moves that appear to be part of Beijing’s wider goal to suppress and even erase the Tibetan language and culture and subsume everything under Han Chinese culture and the Mandarin language.
During the two-month-long winter break, Tibetan students in the capital Lhasa and across Tibet are prohibited from receiving tutorials outside of school-planned assignments or taking private lessons in the Tibetan language, they said.
Instead, authorities have instructed students to focus on improving their Mandarin-language skills by taking lessons to further enhance their proficiency, the sources said.
In Dzoge (Zoige in Chinese) and Ngaba (Aba) counties in Aba Tibetan Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, authorities have restricted children from wearing clothing with Tibetan religious symbols, one of the sources said.
This comes along with a ban on Tibetan-language tutoring and a prohibition on parents from taking their children to monasteries or letting them participate in religious activities during the vacation. Teaching any academic modules beyond the Chinese state-approved curriculum is strictly prohibited, the sources said.
Vacation assignments
The restrictions are being enforced across various Tibetan areas such as Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province and Dzoge, Ngaba, and Kardze in Sichuan province, they added.
The Chinese government has specifically prohibited the teaching of Tibetan language during the winter break, mandating that students focus on school homework based on Chinese government political education only.
“In Golog, for example, the Qinghai Provincial Education Department has issued specific vacation assignments focusing on the improvement of the Mandarin language alongside the ban on learning Tibetan language and culture in the area,” the second source said.
These so-called vacation assignments require both parents and students to jointly study Chinese political education, including Xi Jinping’s ideology, he added.
Additional restrictions have been imposed in Lhasa and other Tibetan regions, where Chinese authorities have issued notices mandating the strict surveillance of students and prohibiting them from joining online groups or community activities, sources said.
In 2021, Chinese authorities in various Tibetan areas began prohibiting Tibetan children from taking informal Tibetan-language classes or workshops during their winter holidays, a move that local Tibetans and parents of affected children said would negatively impact the children’s connection to their native language.
In late 2023 and in early 2024, Chinese authorities stepped up efforts to enforce the ban on children taking private lessons and participating in religious activities by going door-to-door to conduct random checks in residential areas and commercial establishments, RFA learned at the time from sources.
Translated by Dawa Dolma for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.