Genocide?

Tibetan Education in India: a comparison

2008-04-26T17:13:00.001-04:00

School as a site of Tibetan ethnic identity construction in India: Results from a content analysis of textbooks and Delphi study of teachers' perceptions

Mary Ann Maslak, Educational Review, Volume 60, Issue 1 February 2008 , pages 85 - 106

Tibetan is the medium of instruction for all subjects at the primary level. The curriculum guidelines for classes 1-5, developed by the CTSA, provide the structure for courses in social studies, general science, drawing, physical education, value education, music, dance and Tibetan cultural activities. English and Tibetan languages are also taught at the primary level.9 Morning assemblies - a venue for prayers, Tibetan and Hindi community songs, news and Indian and Tibetan National anthem - are held on a daily basis.

At the middle school level (classes 6-8), the Tibetan schools adopt the national Indian system's curriculum that requires basic academic subjects to be taught in English. The only Tibetan curriculum offered at this level is the Tibetan language. The same is the case at the secondary, school level…Classes 9 and 10 offer five subjects, including English, Tibetan, general science, mathematics and social studies (which includes history, geography and civics). Physical education, dance and music are also taught...English is the medium of instruction for class 6 through class 12.

Required CBSE-designed examinations in grades 10 and 12 serve important roles in students' educational futures…Neither examination requires Tibetan; both examinations require English language competency.

Textbook Content Analysis:

“The social science textbook provides the most diverse collection of ethnic terms, proper names and references to those other than Hindus (Figure 3)…there are no references to Tibetan proper names...No translation in other languages is made in the textbook…Pictures representing Hindus at jobs, at school and in the home provide all pictorial references for the textbook's readers.14 Tibetans are neither represented in pictorial or vocabulary terms…Chapters 18 throughout the remainder of the books represent contemporary life in India. One might expect these chapters would be an appropriate place to include references to the relatively new refugee population; however, the same trend follows.”

Author: Mary Ann Maslak a
Affiliation: School of Education, St John's University, Jamaica, NY
DOI: 10.1080/00131910701794671
Published in: Educational Review, Volume 60, Issue 1 February 2008 , pages 85 – 106

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/00131911.asp

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

2008-04-26T17:06:00.002-04:00

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”

Making Tibetans in China: the educational challenges of harmonious multiculturalism (TAR)

2008-04-26T17:01:00.001-04:00

Gerard A. Postiglione. Educational Review, Volume 60, Issue 1 February 2008, pp. 1-20
(TAR)

The urgency of basic education for all

“Although the TAR is one of the most remote regions of China, the prosperity of the mainland and the central government's intention to make the TAR economically prosperous, culturally visible, nationally integrated, and politically secure, have led to steadily rising living standards for many Tibetans (Goldstein et al. 2003; Sautman and Dreyer 2005)… Contemporary Tibet's main educational policies are set within the context of a socialist state adapting to market economics, while permitting a special status for Tibet's educational needs…Nomadic regions present the greatest challenge because of their remoteness and poverty levels…. Popularizing basic education in rural and nomadic regions of Tibet is a daunting task, even though major infrastructural developments have led to increased optimism.

Tibetans continue to face the question of how schools can become vibrant institutions within their communities, integrated with their values and traditions, yet functional to the household economy and a rise in their living standards. Cognizance among Tibetans about sustaining their natural and cultural resources is ubiquitous. Tibet's devoutly religious population and internationally popularized cultural traditions are legendary. Trilingual capacity, limited as it is to a tiny (but growing) number of young intellectuals, is impressive nonetheless, especially given that Tibetan, Chinese, and English are vastly different languages. As institutions of selective social and cultural reproduction, the complex role played by Tibetan schools will come to have a significant impact on the aspirations of a new generation of Tibetan youth.

Historical antecedents and education targets

“Beijing assumed responsibility for the management of Tibet in 1951. Monasteries remained the principal educational institutions until the fourteenth Dalai Lama fled during the uprising of 1959…During the Great Leap period, basic education was expanded rapidly though community (minban) schools. China's TAR was formally established in 1965, and land became redistributed and administered by People's Communes (Grunfeld 1996; Xia, Ha, and Abadu 1999). The Cultural Revolution wrought havoc and destruction on monasteries and schools, followed by an admission of errors by government. By 1978, with a loosening of restrictions on religion, many children studied at monasteries. Communes were abandoned in 1984 and the quality of schools improved, making them more attractive… School enrolment rates stagnated before rising significantly in the 1990s, albeit accompanied by offsetting dropout rates at the upper grades of primary school… Literacy rates and school access in Tibetan regions of China have continued to rise year by year… Yet, educational progress in Tibet has been far slower, and not nearly as impressive as in the rest of China…

Preferential education policies for Tibet

Aside from the huge financial outlay for basic education, school access targets in China's ethnic minority regions could not be achieved without additional policies designed for implementation in ethnic minority regions (Ha and Teng 2001)…For example, some county authorities instituted a system for school attendance reward points to be converted by households to cash at the end of the year (Postiglione, Ben Jiao and Gyatso 2006). Also, a small part of teacher salaries are withheld in some areas as an incentive for them to sustain attendance and promotion rates. Such short-term measures vary from county to county but some policies are consistently applied throughout the TAR, including the three guarantees (sanbao), bilingual education, and the neidi Tibet schools (Xizang neidiban).

The Three Guarantees: “The "three guarantees" is specifically directed at enrolment rates in primary schools. It includes measures designed to relieve families of costs associated with schooling. It makes provision for food, at least a tea drink during the daytime for children who live beyond 2 kilometres from school and tsampa (barley flour) and other foods for those who board at school. It also includes providing clothes, school wear in some cases, and a blanket at boarding school. The third guarantee is living quarters, since geography necessitates that most rural and nomadic children be accommodated at school beginning in upper primary and junior secondary school… The extent and manner in which the three guarantees are implemented remains a subject in need of further study.”

Ethnic identity issues are naturally less salient in poor rural and nomadic areas where there is little exposure as yet to other ethnic groups and school instruction is conducted in Tibetan. Moreover, the struggles of day to day life in most households, struggles similar to life among poor rural and nomadic people anywhere on the globe, take priority over questions of ethnic identity.

Medium of Instruction: “few Tibetans advocate not learning any Chinese. Most agree that Chinese is needed to ensure survival in a market economy since it broadens access to non-farm occupation. Dual track education (Tibetan and Chinese) is generally available in the urban areas, but after the primary school grade three, there is a shift toward Chinese as the medium of instruction, with only language and literature courses taught in the Tibetan language.

While TAR secondary schools use Chinese as the medium of instruction, many secondary schools in Qinghai province, bordering the TAR, use Tibetan for school subjects (science, math, history, etc.) up through senior middle school. Experiments in the TAR that use Tibetan as the language of instruction for science and mathematics subjects have yielded successful results. There are advocates of Tibetan as a language of science and modernity, as well as a means of raising achievement scores since students will learn more efficiently and then can perform better on college and university entrance examinations. This is fraught with some risk however, as proponents of Tibetan medium instruction may be labeled as separatists…

China has done a great deal to produce school textbooks in ethnic minority languages, including Tibetan and about 21 other languages. The five province/region Tibetan learning materials leadership group has facilitated the production of Tibetan language learning resources and has visited other countries to learn about how bilingual education is undertaken elsewhere. However, the Tibetan language school textbooks in mathematics, science and other subjects are often direct translations of Chinese language materials. Moreover, the updating of Tibetan language textbooks is slow and costly. Meanwhile, Tibetan medium of instruction is often viewed as a hindrance to advancement as TAR secondary school graduates soon discover when they have to compete for jobs with the thousands of TAR students returning with good grasp of Chinese from 7 years at neidi schools. The neidi schools add more complexity to the issue of language education as well shall see later…

Dislocated education: “The third major policy with significant implications for rural education in the TAR is the neidi xizang ban (inland Tibet secondary schools and classes) or dislocated schools, which send primary school graduates to secondary schools across China… these bilingual youth are well suited to be cultural middlemen/women between Tibet and the rest of China. The form and content of their education represents the kind that the state would like to be the norm for Tibetans, and the increasing demand on the part of parents for these schools ensures that the neidi education policy will continue indefinitely, despite its stratifying effect upon Tibetan society.

Most schools, if not classes, are ethnically segregated…All teachers (except one or two Tibetan teachers for Tibetan language and literature courses) are local Han Chinese…

My research based on oral histories of neidi school graduates makes it clear that these dislocated Chinese boarding schools do not conform to the stereotype of institutions to unmake ethnic minorities (Spack 2002). While there is a strict separation between religious and the state education, the schools themselves have not been used to de-culturate by prohibiting the use of native language and the erasure of students' cultural memories. Tibetan families are not coerced to send their children to the neidi schools. Moreover, many families whose children fail to score high enough to gain entrance to these schools will pay the extra fee to get them admitted. Still others send their children to the growing number of private (minban) secondary schools in China, Chengdu in particular.

The stated mission of the neidi schools is not explicitly to civilize the Tibetans. However, Tibetan culture, though celebrated throughout China, especially in its popular media, is defined by the state schools. Unlike many other twentieth century boarding schools for indigenous peoples in other countries, the neidi schools for Tibetan students offer classes about ethnic language, and literature. Moreover, the school environment recognizes Tibetan culture through its many representations of art and architecture, music and observance of Tibetan holidays. Behaviour is not controlled through corporal punishment and it is not used if students speak Tibetan while inside or outside of the school. Nearly all students speak of the close relationship they had with their Han Chinese teachers. Discipline rather than fear is the norm shaping behaviour, though the schools also make use of ample reference to moral and political education curriculum, school rituals and teacher modelling to shape behaviour. Communication with students' Tibetan home is not cut-off by school authorities. Parents are permitted to visit and a small but growing number do visit the schools, though for most the travel costs are prohibitive.22 …

A major challenge for them was Chinese medium instruction, for which most experienced difficulty... At the same time, students also study Tibetan language and literature as a school subject at junior secondary school level… Attention to the study of Tibetan wanes in senior secondary school as students prepared for the national entrance examination for college and university…

Students who graduate from the Chinese boarding schools generally feel that they learned to become more independent and self-reliant than their counterparts who stayed in Tibet. They also remark positively about teaching methods used. Their employers, many of whom are school heads, comment positively about the capabilities of the neidi school graduates, even while being ambivalent about the inland school policy…

Among the cohorts we interviewed, all wanted to return to Tibet after graduation. Of those interviewed, only a few expressed a wish to remain in China, though these few also returned to Tibet. Some considered further education and would be willing to return to China for such study. Nevertheless, staying in China for work was not an option. The intention of the neidi school policy is that students return to help Tibet's development. However, enforcement of this policy would be difficult…

Those in Tibet who fail to enter neidi schools need to be given opportunities to study for at least some period of time in other parts of China, including the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, in order to broaden their understanding of China and the world. This approach resonates with China's emergent global influence. This will also work to moderate the social stratification resulting from the structured inequality in Tibet's education system with neidi school graduates elite status among graduates of TAR schools…

Education, harmonious society and Tibetan civilization

The heart of the matter of education for Tibetans lies in the improvement of access to quality education for sustainable development of social, cultural, and economic resources. At the very least, quality education is about learning how to read, write, and communicate; how to perceive, plan, act, and innovate; how to think critically and creatively; how to learn how to learn, how to be confident, engaged, and effectively committed to community development…

Cultural diversity in China rivals that anywhere else in the world. This is not to say that multi-ethnic diversity is strongly encouraged, only that is it increasingly salient and widely recognized. While ethnic minority culture is celebrated, ethnic diversity is managed. The "harmonious society" campaign prescribes Chinese ethnicity as "plurality within the organic unity of the Chinese nation" (duoyuan yiti geju) (Fei 1986).24 Yet, there is no question that a more open attitude toward education for cultural diversity has taken place in some ethnic minority areas of China (Yu 2007). Given that Tibet is the most remote and ethnically homogenous of China's five major provincial level autonomous regions, future developments could have national implications for the way that ethnic intergroup processes are conceptualized in a more globally integrated China. The debate over cultural preservation, ethnic autonomy, and state schooling remains complex. As Appiah points out in his work on the ethics of identity, "We must help children to make themselves: and we have to do so according to our values because children do not begin with values of their own" (Appiah 2005, 137). Making Tibetans within China is an educational task that remains a work in progress. This debate cannot remain disconnected from strategies for the improvement of the learning environment and academic achievement of Tibetans. In searching for reasons why Tibetan educational achievement levels are far behind those in the rest of the country, a variety of perspectives are available but new thinking about a well resourced and community driven learning environment for schools is a natural step forward.

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/00131911.asp

"Cultural Genocide" and Tibet

2008-04-26T16:51:00.002-04:00

“Cultural Genocide and Tibet” (excerpts)
Sautman, Barry (2003). Texas Journal of International Law, 38(2):173-246.

Language

European colonialism eliminated at least 15% of all languages spoken at the time and "language murder" is recognized as "one of the basic tools of ethnocide, of the deculturation of peoples, which has always been perpetrated by colonization and is still the semi-official aim of governments which do not recognize the rights of their native ethnic minorities." "The Dalai Lama claims that migration to Tibet threatens to cause the eradication of the Tibetan language" and has stated, "our own language no longer has any value in our own land." A US Congressman has stated that "Tibetan Buddhists face virtual extinction. There is cultural genocide today taking place in Tibet. Their language is being stripped out." These assertions are not mere hyperbole but falsely represent that "linguicide" is part of a plan to destroy Tibetan culture.

China's minority tongues are seen as preservative of ethnic cultures, while Mandarin is viewed as a bridge to the urban areas. PRC law states that minorities enjoy freedom to use their own languages in autonomous areas, where 98% of Tibetans live. In exercising their autonomy in language choice, ethnic minority areas have increasingly promoted bilingualism, especially in education. Minority area regulations encourage local language use in primary instruction, with putonghua introduced in primary or lower middle school grades. Most minority areas, including Tibet, follow this practice. There is a measure of flexibility in the TAR, however. Some rural counties have reportedly abandoned bilingualism, in pat due to a lack of putonghua-speaking teachers.

Claims that primary schools in Tibet teach putonghua are in error. Tibetan was the main language of instruction in 98% of TAR primary schools in 1996; today, putonghua is introduced in early grades only in urban schools. In six years of Tibetan primary school, pupils are said to spend a total of 1598 hours studying Tibetan and 748 hours studying Chinese, a two-to-one ratio. Because less than four out of ten TAR Tibetans reach secondary school, primary school matters most for their cultural formation. In other Tibetan areas, primary schooling may be in Tibetan, and in some places, parents can choose the language of primary education. More often than note, however, Tibetan students outside the TAR are taught in putonghua because of either parental choice or,, in some places, because Tibetan language instruction is unavailable due to a shortage of Tibetan instructors or a high percentage of other ethnies living among Tibetans

Secondary education in Tibetan is more common outside the TAR than inside it. TAR authorities in 2000 asserted that "local junior middle schools are gradually turning to teaching subjects on natural sciences with Tibetan language" and that "Tibetan language is the only teaching language for 102 classes in some local middle schools in [the TAR], while the Tibetan language is partially used in some other local middle schools." In the famous Lhasa Middle School, the region's best, there are six classes a week on the Tibetan language, five on putonghua, and four on the English language...There is evidence that Tibetan schools in the best secondary schools in Lhasa prefer Chinese as the language of instruction, while those elsewhere would benefit from having Tibetan as the main language of schooling.

In 1999, secondary school Tibetan language texts were introduced in the TAR, and Tibetans are now about 50% of TAR secondary school teachers. Two trends, however, seem to be clashing in terms of the language of instruction for Tibetans. On the one hand, instructional material in Tibetan is increasingly available; on the other hand, Tibetan parents generally want bilingual education for their children, even at the primary level, so that they can compete with native putonghua speakers if they do continue their educations at higher levels. This attitude is no different from what obtains in the emigre community in India, where “Tibetan students fear that a Tibetan medium primary education will reduce their chance of success in secondary schools as well as their career prospects.

At the tertiary level, many Tibetans major in humanities, and, at two universities, they can study humanistic disciplines in Tibetan. At that level it is unlikely that putonghua instruction contributes to language erosion. At universities around the world where much instruction is not given in the national language, but in English (e.g., Hong Kong, Netherlands, Sweden) students still speak their mother tongue....A specialist of education in Tibet has noted that it was not until 1994 that the emigre administration endorsed Tibetan as the language of instruction in the primary schools of Tibetan settlements in India, and he "Tibetan government-in-exile may have been no more successful that the Chinese government in providing Tibetan-medium education for the children in the refugee community in India, even though the preservation of Tibetan culture is one of its primary goals." It should also be noted that mother tongue instruction in Tibet compares favourably to the situation of ethnic Tibetan natives of India's Ladakh. Schooling there is largely only for boys and occurs in monasteries. Instruction in the Ladakh state school system is in Urdu, a language unfamiliar to Ladakhi children, 90% of whom fail to finish school.

The emigres have contended that "Chinese-built schools teach Chinese history and culture in the Chinese language and propagate communism while denigrating religion" and that the education system is aimed at "erasing cultural identity." However, a study of a Tibetan secondary school in Sichuan by a US anthropologist found that textbooks used in the school "do contain a fair amount of material drawn from Tibetan sources and relevant to Tibetan cultural life in the road sense"; that the lessons based on the texts "play an important role in establishing a sense of unified Tibetan culture and identity among young Tibetans"; and that religious concepts were treated respectfully by the Tibetan teachers.

Local Tibetans themselves, however, did not necessarily consider Tibetan to be their first choice as a language of instruction because it narrowed career choices compared to Chinese.

The TAR issued regulations in the late 1980s on the use of Tibetan, with the aim to "make Tibetan the dominant language in Tibet." A TAR law to protect the Tibetan language was finally passed in 2002. While Tibetan is by no means dominant in urban Tibet, it is in most rural areas, where some 85% of Tibetans live. Regulations provide that public signs and documents issued by public institutions at or above the county level must be bilingual, while documents at the township and village levels can be in Tibetan only. . . Tibetan-language newspapers, radio, films, and other media also exist in all Tibetan areas, although much of what they produce is translated form Chinese, due in part to limited funding.

Except for some persons living at the edge of the Plateau, Tibetans continue to speak their mother tongue and moreover associate it with both social status and group solidarity. In the TAR, and ethnic Tibetan who cannot speak Tibetan is practically unheard of, while in the whole PRC, some 92.5-94% of Tibetans speak Tibetan; the remainder speak either another ethnic minority language or Putonghua. Outside the TAR, 10-30% of Tibetans can also speak putonghua, but in the TAR, apart from Lhasa, only about 5% of Tibetans can do so. Even assuming that all TAR Tibetans in cities and towns are to an extent bilingual, only about 15% of Tibetans would be accorded that classification. In fact, "Tibetans with anything beyond a rudimentary grasp of putonghua comprise a very small portion of the total population." Members of a Western "mission" dispatched to Tibet by the emigre administration claim that "Chinese is the dominant language which everyone is expected to speak." This assertion is plainly wrong and was based only on a visit to a secondary school and a university in Lhasa. Tibetan peasants are not expected to speak Chinese, nor are urban Tibetan workers, unless they work with non-Tibetans.

None of the many recent studies of endangered languages deems Tibetan to be imperiled, and language maintenance among Tibetans contrasts with language loss even in the remote areas of Western states renowned for liberal policies. In the United States, for example, all indigenous languages are nearly extinct in California, though some groups are attempting to revitalize those communication forms. French is found increasingly less in Louisiana, and there is official and popular hostility toward other “ethnic" languages and bilingualism in general. The United States is described as "a veritable cemetery of foreign languages"

The experience of language loss has also affected Tibetans who emigrate outside of South Asia. In Canada, "young Tibetans lead Western lifestyles and speak little Tibetan." A scholar writing in an emigre online newspaper has observed that young Tibetan-Americans generally do not speak Tibetan and that no one in the Tibetan community in Washington, D.C., could read Tibetan. Tibetans who emigrated from Nepal to New York City "tend to favor speaking Nepali rather than Tibetan and English." The Dalai Lama has had to urge Tibetans in the United States to speak Tibetan in their homes.

Bilingualism in Tibet is promoted by policies that require that all laws, official notices, commercial signs, and the like be bilingual; that allow Tibetans to interact with government in their own language; and that have created mass media with substantial Tibetan components. Official policies in Tibet go beyond the respect for minority languages required by international law or practiced in European rights-based" states. Most of these states have not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, even though its obligations are fairly minimal. In education, for example, it is satisfied by making available pre-school education in minority languages.

===

"Language inflation is targeted to affect policymaking by altering perceptions and limiting the options of political actors. Confronted by accusations from a world spiritual leader that China is committing cultural genocide in Tibetan, many Westerners unquestioningly accept this characterization. Meanwhile those who doubt its accuracy nevertheless become reticent and find that they must, per Secretary Powell, show "solidarity with the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet." In doing so, the perforce diminish their capacity to aid in a compromise of the Tibet Question by signaling to the PRC that they are in the thrall of separatists and by strengthening those Tibetan emigre forces that oppose compromise."

Conclusion

Tibetologist Elliot Sperling observes that "within certain limits in the PRC does make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural expression" and "the cultural activity taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored." Other supporters of the emigre cause, including Tibet scholar Robert Barnett and German Green Party leader Antje Vollmer, also recognize the inaccuracy of the cultural genocide claim. By all accounts, Tibetanness remains robust. As a US reporter recently observed: "[F]or all the changes in styles and attitudes--mostly among the small minority of Tibetans living in cities--Tibetan identity remains strong."

If the concept of cultural genocide in Tibet is inapposite legally and empirically, the charge also has baleful political effects. In universal terms, the application of the concept exemplifies a language inflation that disserves the urgent struggle against destruction of peoples and their cultures. It has been said that "the notion of genocide is marked by conceptual confusion, often compounded by its rhetorical use on the part of those seeking to inflame and stigmatise social and political discourse." Scholars have catalogued many misuses of the term, with one concluding that "when one needs a catch-all term to describe 'oppression' of one form or another, one often resorts to labeling it 'genocide.' The result is the debasement of the concept."

...

In specific terms, use of the concept of cultural genocide as a tactical weapon in the Tibet case disserves the effort to resolve the Tibet Question. Genocide has been called the "crime of crimes" and the "crime of the century." A UN body has deemed it "the ultimate crime and the gravest violation of human rights it is possible to commit." As Koshkenniemi observes:

“To be branded as a genocidal State is to be classified as the worst kind of criminal, a pariah, an outlaw among States, to have been put beyond the pale of civilised humanity. The evocative strength or the symbolic value of genocide is formidable....Even to be accused of genocide affects a State's international standing, its political, diplomatic and commercial contacts with other States.”

The attempt to associate China's leaders with the level of criminality implied in a charge of genocide, even if "only" cultural, surely hardens their distrust of the emigres with whom they must deal if a compromise on Tibet is to be reached. PRC and local leaders, both Tibetan and non-Tibetan, are convinced that they have done the opposite of committing "genocide" by pouring great treasure and effort into the development of Tibet, while preserving key elements of traditional culture. They deem it an affront that accusations of "cultural genocide" emanate from emigre leaders. The latter, according to PRC leaders, have "done nothing to contribute to Tibet’s economic and social development," "[know] nothing of the real situation there," and seek to "set aside [Tibet] as a museum of ancient culture."

Education in India: a comparison

2008-04-26T16:16:00.002-04:00

School as a site of Tibetan ethnic identity construction in India: Results from a content analysis of textbooks and Delphi study of teachers' perceptions

Mary Ann Maslak
Educational Review, Volume 60, Issue 1 February 2008 , pages 85 - 106

India

Tibetan is the medium of instruction for all subjects at the primary level. The curriculum guidelines for classes 1-5, developed by the CTSA, provide the structure for courses in social studies, general science, drawing, physical education, value education, music, dance and Tibetan cultural activities. English and Tibetan languages are also taught at the primary level.9 Morning assemblies - a venue for prayers, Tibetan and Hindi community songs, news and Indian and Tibetan National anthem - are held on a daily basis.

Textbook Content Analysis:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/00131911.asp