12 th Session of the Forum on Minority Issues 28-29 November 2019 – Geneva Item 3: Public policy objectives for education in, and the teaching of, minority languages S tate m en t by the Inte rnationa l C am paign for Tibe t Ladies and Gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of the International Campaign for Tibet to draw the Forum’s attention to the difficulties that Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China face to learn in their mother tongue. I also want to highlight the negative human rights impacts of Tibetan language discrimination. In recent years, due to the increasingly assimilationist policies implemented by the Chinese authorities to safeguard “national unity and harmonious society”, the Tibetan language has been significantly marginalized with Tibetan-medium instruction drastically downgraded in favor of Chinese-medium instruction. Today, while primary-level classes are taught in Tibetan in many Tibetan areas, instruction at secondary, tertiary and vocational levels are in Mandarin in all subjects other than Tibetan language classes. 1 Informal Tibetan language classes offered by small private groups or monasteries have also been the target of state control. In December 2018, the Qinghai Nangchen county government published a notice banning language classes in monasteries over the winter break, describing them as “ideological infiltration amongst the youth” and a form of disguised political opposition to the government.”2 Our research has also identified a serious lack of funding and institutional support for producing Tibetan-language learning materials and bilingual teacher training courses. Despite stipulations and rules that “make clear that equal attention be given to Tibetan and HanChinese languages in the Tibet Autonomous Region, with the Tibetan language as the major one,”3 the lack of possibilities for Tibetans to study in their mother tongue places them at an educational and economic disadvantage. Native-language instruction leads to higher academic performance, which can better equip Tibetan students when competing with Han students for tertiary and career opportunities. The devaluation of the Tibetan language is also a clear violation of their cultural 1 In its concluding observation following its review of China in August 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concerns about the situation in the Tibetan Autonomous Region in particular, where reports showed that Tibetan language teaching in schools “has not been placed on equal footing in law, policy and practice with Chinese, and that it has been significantly restricted.” https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/CHN/CERD_C_CHN_CO_14-17_32237_E.pdf. 2 China: Tibetan Children Banned from Classes, Human Rights Watch, 30 January 2019, https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/china-tibetan-children-banned-classes. 3 "Stipulations of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Learning, Use and Promotion of the Tibetan Spoken and Written Language" referred to in White Paper: Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet, 24 May 2004 http://www.chinaun.org/eng/zt/xzwt/t418924.htm. 1/2