China’s language policy part of cultural homogenisation drive
Nov. 19 (HighPeaksPureEarth/by Woeser): The Chinese authorities are pushing for cultural homogenisation and shear all tongues that do not speak Mandarin. The (language) policies initiated by Qinghai Province as part of the education reform have an experimental character and are a little bit like the “patriotic education” advocated in Lhasa’s monasteries ten years ago, which today have already infiltrated all monasteries in all of Tibet.
These new policies, first being implemented in 6 autonomous prefectures of the Qinghai aim to turn all secondary and primary “minzu” schools as well as common schools into “Han Schools”, promoting the idea of “Mandarin comes first, Tibetan comes second, establishing Mandarin as the main language of teaching and the first language to be learnt”. This education reform is envisaged to come into effect in the entire Tibetan region, speeding up the process of all monks and lay people in the Tibetan region becoming more Han and being sinicised from a young age.
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