Tibetan Schools Forcibly Shut Down by Ccp

Human Rights Research Center

1 minute ago

5 min read

October XX, 2026

NOTE: The writer prefers to use lower case “c” and “p” to challenge the authority of the Chinese communist party (Ccp).

HRRC condemns the closure of Tibetan-run schools and the violations of the Tibetan children’s rights to education, language, and cultural identity. HRRC also urges China to ratify and protect minority children’s rights to be educated in their own language.

Tibetan women and children in their Chupa, traditional attire, attending a cultural event. [Image credit: Man Fong Wong/Pexels]

On October 17, the Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), reported that three community-run Tibetan schools in Golok, Amdo (now Qinghai), Tibet, were forcibly shut down by the Ccp.

The three community-run schools — Golog Tadrak Orphan School, Ra-Gya Jigme Gyaltsen Grassland Girls’ School, and the Jasak village school — were all established, operated, and funded by local communities. Although students were required to study subjects commonly taught in mainstream high schools, including Mandarin Chinese, English, maths, and science, these schools also provided education and vocational training rooted in their native language and culture, such as Tibetan, Buddhist philosophy, traditional medicine, astrology, and Thangka painting.

The Ra-Gya Jigme Gyaltsen Grassland Girls’ School was described as a “prominent girls’ school” by both the CTA and local Tibetan communities for providing education to girls from nomadic herding communities across the vast Tibetan plateau.

The school was founded in 2005 by Ra-Gya Jigme Gyaltsen, a senior monk of Ragya Monastery. Its founding principle was based on the belief that “educating girls also meant educating future mothers, as well as laying the foundation for humanity”. The school was recognized for combining modern education with the preservation of Tibetan cultural heritage, and some of its alumni have become respected figures in Tibetan society.

According to local sources, the school was forcibly taken over by the authorities and students were seen weeping in the schoolyard while special force police entered the school. Many alumni expressed regrets and grief online, referring to the school as their “mother” (see Figure 1) .

Figure 1: Screenshot provided by Lhasa Spring, a Tibetan advocacy group, where alumni commented, ‘The mother I remember’ about Ragya's Girls School.

The three schools in Golog are one of the many school shutdowns across the Tibetan plateau over the past several years. In July 2021, for instance, seven community-run schools in Darlag, Machen, Gade, and Chikdril counties were ordered to shut down. The CTA commented that the closure of the three Tibetan schools was part of a wider pattern to accelerate the assimilation and erosion of Tibetan identities under China’s newly enacted ethnic unity law.

How do schooling systems work in Tibet?

According to sources who are familiar with the situation but demanded their identity to be withheld for security reasons, schools in Tibet can be categorised into two types. The first comprises community-run, self-funded schools whose curriculum includes cultural elements of Tibetan cultures, such as the teaching of Buddhist philosophy, debating philosophy, or the teaching of traditional craftsmanship. They were designed and taught by Tibetology scholars, namely monastery lamas. Moreover, Tibetan served as the language of instruction. The recently closed Golog Tadrak Orphan School, Ra-Gya Jigme Gyaltsen Grassland Girls’ School, and the Jasak village school fall into this category.

The second type comprises state-sponsored schools, where lessons are taught mainly in Mandarin and Tibetan is merely treated as an elective alongside English and mathematics. State-run schools also provide boarding facilities. The Ccp has presented the boarding system as “very convenient” for families living in remote Tibetan areas, including herding communities, by addressing the challenges posed by long and hazardous journeys to school.

However, Tibetans in exile and human rights groups have challenged this official narrative, alleging that students were coerced to attend the state-run boarding schools. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), a Washington-based advocacy group, reported that children as young as four or five were forced to attend these schools and forbidden to speak Tibetan while living in the institutions. If parents refused, authorities would threaten the families with cancellation of social subsidies or permanent lifelong bans on the children’s formal education.

Heavy emphasis on the history of the People Liberation Army

A local source, whose identity has been withheld for security reasons, told HRRC that the state-run schools across the Tibetan plateau place heavy emphasis on the narrative of “Tibet Since 1951: Liberation, Development and Prosperity ”. According to the source, compared with schools in mainland China, schools in Tibet emphasise the narrative that Tibet’s present-day prosperity (referred to as Zang in Mandarin) is attributable to the People’s Liberation Army’s peaceful liberation of serfdom in Tibet.

However, the above narrative is contested by many Tibetan youth. The Ccp’s accounts of the history of Tibet have drawn criticism for oversimplifying Tibetan social structures before 1951, and forging a narrative that extends to current politics debates over the legitimacy of China’s rule in Tibet. Furthermore, the ICT regarded the patriotic education in Tibet as a broader political strategy for Xi Jinping to “groom supporters of the Ccp”, with an intent to erase the Tibetan identities among children from a young age.

In China, all secondary schools and universities are required to provide political education, including Marxist-Socalists Value with Chinese characteristics, with the “Xi Jinping thoughts” having been added into the curriculum in recent years. However, schools in Tibet had a distinctive curriculum, focusing on the history of the People Liberation of Tibet, and the liberation of serfdom.

Yan Qing, professor at Minzu University of China, explained the rationale for an enhanced political education in Tibet:

“From the perspective of the political environment, Tibet is the only province with an illegal government in exile in our country’s provincial-level administrative divisions, and it is based on foreign countries that undermines the development of domestic ethnic relations.”

The reference to the “illegal government” concerns the CTA, established by Tibetans in exile and headquartered in Dharamshala, India. Qing’s description of the CTA represents the Ccp’s political framework and sovereign claim over Tibet, whereas the Dalai Lama remains the central moral and symbolic figure of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

In contrast to the political education promoted by the Chinese authorities, the CTA enhanced the depth of Tibetan-education in recent years. For example, scholars with Tibetan proficiency from Emory University in the United States translated scientific texts from English into Tibetan to make knowledge more accessible to Tibetan speakers (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Graphs of Cell, written in Tibetan. [Source: Emory University Library of Tibetan Works and Archives/ In Introduction to Biology, p. 24]

Glossary

Curriculum: The subjects studied in a school, college, etc. and what each subject includes
Framework: A supporting structure around which something can be built
Groom: To prepare someone for a special job or activity
Mainstream: considered normal, and having or using ideas, beliefs, etc. that are accepted by most people
Marxist-Socalists Value: Relating to or supporting a social, political, and economic theory that is based on the writings of Karl Marx
Narrative: a story or a description of a series of events
Patriotic: Showing love for your country and being proud of it
Prominent: Very well known and important
Sovereign: Having the highest power or being completely independent
Thangka Painting: Artworks depict Buddhist deities, scenes or mandalas. Thangkas are used as teaching tools and aids for meditation, helping practitioners visualise and connect with the spiritual world.

References

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Tibetan Schools Forcibly Shut Down by Ccp

How do schooling systems work in Tibet?

Heavy emphasis on the history of the People Liberation Army

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