China's colonial boarding schools are eroding Tibetan identity: TAI report

“‘When They Came to Take Our Children’: China’s Colonial Boarding Schools and the Future of Tibet” draws on rare, firsthand accounts to show how the Chinese government is using Tibetan children as a means to aggressively and forcibly assimilate Tibetans, threatening their survival as a distinct people.

Almost four years after Tibet Action Institute said it first exposed the Chinese government’s boarding system in Tibet, now believed to house approximately one million Tibetan children, the new report presents evidence of the devastating impact of the schools and other education policies.

"Students suffer physical and mental abuse, and in some cases, even death. Parents report being unable to easily access their children while they are in the schools," the organisation said in a statement.

TAI said children are separated from their families at an early age — as young as four years old in some rural areas — and indoctrinated to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.

causes emotional and psychological harm, loss of Tibetan language, and alienation from families and communities, TAI said.

TAI claimed that even on school breaks, the Chinese government prevents students from accessing Tibetan language classes or participating in religious activities.

“China’s colonial boarding schools are meant to indoctrinate, not educate Tibetan children,” said education expert Dr. Gyal Lo, Tibet Specialist at Tibet Action Institute.

“The testimonies in the report confirm my research and my own family’s experience: The Chinese authorities are deliberately taking our children away and disconnecting them from their roots. Within a generation our language and culture could be lost, all because the Chinese government sees Tibetan identity as a threat to its control of our nation," Lo said.

The Chinese government has continued to forcibly close Tibetan-run schools over the past several years, as well as local village schools.

This leaves most Tibetan parents with no choice but to send their children away to live in government-run boarding schools.

There, children whose mother tongue is Tibetan must undergo schooling almost entirely in Chinese.

Tibetan-language materials, imagery, or cultural content is purged from the curriculum and the classroom walls, so that children only encounter Chinese identity and culture.

“A generation of Tibetan children is being harmed by China’s colonial boarding school policy — socially, emotionally, and psychologically,” said Lhadon Tethong, Director of Tibet Action Institute. “The lifelong negative impact on each of these children and their families, and on the future health of Tibetan society overall, cannot be overstated. The international community must step up all efforts to urgently push the Chinese government to abolish this abusive and coercive system.”

Tibet Action Institute urges the United Nations and concerned governments to call on the Chinese government to immediately conduct a public investigation into the alleged abuses, deaths, and mental health concerns of Tibetan children in Chinese state-run boarding schools, to abolish the coercive system of boarding schools and preschools, and to enable Tibetan children to access high-quality mother tongue education while living at home.