Schooling for knowledge and cultural survival: Tibetan community schools in nomadic herding areas (Amdo & Kham)

Ellen Bangsbo. Educational Review, Volume 60, Issue 1 February 2008 , pages 69 – 84

Traditional nomadic education

“The Tibetan lama Namkhai Norbu, who travelled in the nomadic areas in Dzachuka region in the 1950s, describes the basic education for nomads to be the Buddhist doctrine, with studies not debarred to laymen. However, it was generally perceived that literacy skills were only for monks, and women were usually not taught to read or write unless they were to become nuns. There was no system of public education in the nomad society, but children could be entrusted to a monk or lama for instruction in reading and writing.”

Contemporary schooling

“It was not until 1986 that nine years of schooling became compulsory in China (PRC)…Although attainments for primary and secondary schooling have greatly improved, still the enrolment rates for Tibetan primary schools lag far behind most other parts of China…About 85% of the Tibetans live in rural areas where job opportunities in non-farm or non-pastoral labour are scarce. A large part of the adult Tibetan population is illiterate and many Tibetan children do not attend school. Without adequate education, the majority of Tibetans will be marginalized and excluded from the benefits of modernization and economic development in China.”

Local rural Tibetan schools

“All schools in China are obliged to follow national educational policies. As an ethnic minority, Tibetans are permitted to localize as much as 20% of the curriculum of their regional schools. The school teachers included casual talk on local issues during class, but otherwise followed curriculum material published by the Ministry of Education by the Five Province Tibet Publishing Group. The staff includes a devoted, but formally uneducated head teacher with several years of teaching experience from employment at the primary school in the nearby town. The head teacher teaches Chinese and mathematics, some of the most important subjects at the primary level. She is fluent in Chinese and speaks the local Tibetan dialect, which is important since Tibetan is the main language spoken in this area, and that most local people speak no or very poor Chinese. This fact also contributes to the aspiration for the parents that their children attend school and learn Chinese. The successful functioning of the school owes much to the head teacher, who seems to be on very good terms with the children, their parents, as well as local officials, and the local NGO supporting the school. A young volunteer student teaches Tibetan (language) while a monk teaches Buddhism, i.e. mainly teaching recitations of prayers and some Buddhist terminology… Although the outside architecture appears as rather simple, the interior wall decorations in the classroom signals Tibetan cultural values in the form of Buddhist quotations and ornamentation designs.

The community school have two classes and the subjects taught are Tibetan and mathematics. Buddhism is taught by memorizing prayers, whereas regular Chinese lessons have not really started yet."

Monastery Schools

“In Tibet [Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)], Qinghai and Sichuan Buddhist monasteries have established formal secular schools within the monastery, starting at the primary level with plans to expand to middle school… It is prohibited by law for Buddhist monasteries in China to give official admittance to novice monks under the age of 18, as it is believed that this kind of choice for the direction of one's life should not be taken by the parents, but should be a personal decision taken by the mature person himself…

The curriculum in these schools includes the Tibetan language, Tibetan culture and history, Buddhism, recitation of Buddhist prayers and, at more advanced schools, the Chinese language. By establishing this kind of secular school within the monastery the Buddhist clergy allows young boys to be affiliated to the monastery and provides an early training ground for children who may later become monks and nuns. The same occurs with respect to mosque education in some Muslim areas of China.

Although most Tibetans are in favour of speaking their own language there is still a pragmatic acceptance of the need to have knowledge of Chinese (Putonghua)… Chinese as a subject in school is therefore accepted and encouraged, although many Tibetans agreed that it is important to insist that Tibetan children should learn Tibetan as their first language and Chinese as their second. Tibetan children at secondary level in urban schools also need to be trilingual, i.e. learn English. These language requirements place a heavy burden on Tibetan school children…Tibetan children living in urban areas usually speak Tibetan and Chinese when they start first grade and they are capable of following classes with Chinese as the language of instruction. However, their Tibetan is often heavily influenced by using ‘‘code-switching’’ and Chinese loan-words.

Vocational training, literacy and numeracy

Some parents regarded literacy as useless unless their child is to enter business, which they have no money for anyway, and others expressed the view that fluency in literal Tibetan was only useful for monks studying Buddhist philosophy. Illiteracy can also be a problem for persons who are unable to read labels on fertilizer or on medicine bottles, etc. Numeracy, however, can be of great value; at local markets it is not uncommon to witness otherwise skilled Tibetan market salesmen lacking numerical skills and consequently inadvertently cheating themselves…

There is a tendency amongst Tibetans to regard the years spent in elementary school as an education in itself which brings a job after graduation, while a scholarly anthropological view on the contrary, makes a distinction between schooling and education, i.e. of schooling being a ‘‘regulated institution of intentional instruction’’ providing a foundation for education which can lead to a job…But, although many children in rural areas do not make it to middle school, attending primary school and being literate can have various benefits…Experiences from development projects at Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund (TPAF) have shown that a success rate for basic vocational training projects requires that participants have basic literacy and numeracy skills at least at the level of formal primary schooling. This also applies even to basic adult vocational training in skills such as midwifery, secretarial, hotel chambermaids, vehicle maintenance and repair, construction and so on. In addition, unskilled, poor Tibetan labourers with nomad family traditions possessing little or no formal schooling tend to have difficulties in following a daily work schedule.

Conclusion: modernity, gaining knowledge and maintaining cultural values

“Few nomads are resistant to settling in houses during the cold winter and modern commodities are being increasingly used, both for reasons of necessity and as status symbols. Travelling in the herding areas one sees Tibetan nomads using radios, wristwatches, motorbikes, and cellular phones. Some traditional black nomad tents are equipped with a solar power panel placed on the rough woven cloth of yak wool on top of the tent. Other nomad tents are equipped with a television attached to a DVD machine, allowing people to watch popular video films on Tibetan nomad life, all produced in China…Thus, the proposed plan by the Ministry of Education for implementing distance learning by digital means in remote Tibetan regions does not seem too far away in the future... [!]

Parents have to comply with official pressure for their child to attend a school. Some parents make an effort to send their children to school and support the school’s efforts to bring literacy and education to the community. Others have yet to be convinced of the value of education and only send their children to schools in order to avoid fines from local authorities, or they may need their children’s help with herding or household duties”