Event on protecting ethnic minorities' education rights held in Geneva

An event on ethnic minorities' education rights, especially in Xizang Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was held by the China Society for Human Rights Studies on Thursday in Geneva.

The gathering was themed, "Right to education of ethnic minorities during the modernization: Good practices in Xizang and Xinjiang, China." It was presided over by Wang Yanwen, deputy secretary-general of the research association, and a total of seven experts and representatives of ethnic minorities from different places in China shared their insights and stories on the topic.

Liang Junyan, a researcher at the China Tibetology Research Center, said that almost all serfs and slaves in old Xizang, who accounted for 95 percent of the population, were illiterate and had no right to education, while since the peaceful liberation of Xizang in 1951, citizens' right to education has been effectively guaranteed. The completion rate for compulsory education in Xizang has reached 97.73 percent, according to a white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office in 2023. The white paper also noted that the results of the seventh national census showed that the number of college graduates per 100,000 inhabitants in Xizang had risen from 5,507 in 2010 to 11,019 in 2020.

Liang stated that boarding schools are common practice across the world and some countries are biased against China's boarding schools in Xizang and smeared them as "assimilation." 

Jia Chunyang, the executive director of the Economic and Social Security Research Center at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, explained that the practice of boarding school is one of the measures the Chinese government took to protect Xizang students' education rights. 

Since 1985, aside from free compulsory education for students, the Xizang government has provided free food and free accommodation for the children of farmers and herdsmen in Xizang, Jia added.

In China, many provinces and regions have boarding schools, including Xinjiang. Qiao Basheng, a researcher at the Human Rights Research Center at Northwest University of Political Science and Law said that boarding schools in Xinjiang are designed for students from remote farming and pastoral areas, because the schools spared them from long journeys and ensured their safety.

Tuersun Aibai, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Xinjiang University, shared his experience as an Uygur, saying he went to Fudan University thanks to China's ethnic minority college entrance examination policy and he then studied for a master's degree and a doctorate at Tsinghua University. During his study at the two colleges, he was provided with various awards and grants of more than 150,000 yuan ($20,843).

Aibai added that with the strong support of the government, the illiteracy rate in Xinjiang had dropped to 2.66 percent by 2022. 

Moreover, all primary and secondary schools and teaching sites in Xinjiang are now connected to the internet, and Xizang has established an online education platform for the whole region, and all schools can get access to the internet, which further improves the local educational level, according to Gong Xianghe, the executive director of Human Rights Research Institute of Southeast University.

(Cover: An event on ethnic minorities' education rights is held by the China Society for Human Rights Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, March 14, 2024. /CFP)