Contact is taking a holiday!

Tighter policies in schools reflect the ‘narrowed’ tolerance towards Tibet from the Chinese state

– By Will Barker for The Week, 11 May 2026

A new report by Human Rights Watch argues that the compulsory use of Chinese as the primary language in schools in Tibet raises “serious concerns under international human rights law”.

Detailing the effects of the “Children’s Speech Harmonization Plan” five years ago, as well as more recent updates to the “National Common Language Law”, the organisation argues that measures are marginalising Tibetan identity to the point of erasure.

“International concern about these developments has grown,” said Jianli Yang in The Diplomat. These language laws fit into a pattern in recent years of “intensified policies” aimed to “reshape” Tibetan identity through “cultural control”.

‘Eroding’ Tibetan culture

Both politically and legally, “China is steadily narrowing the space for minority autonomy in education, language, and religion”, said The Diplomat. In December last year, the National People’s Congress revised the “National Common Language Law”. It now requires Mandarin to be the “fundamental teaching language” and mandates standardised textbooks throughout the education system. The codification of assimilation policies “marks a new phase” in Beijing’s strategy: it seeks “not merely to manage ethnic diversity but to fundamentally reshape it”.

Videos from Tibet on social media have shown young children “not even able to say their names in Tibetan, pronouncing them as if they were Chinese”, said Kris Cheng in The Guardian. Children, who have been brought up speaking Tibetan stop speaking it within a year of beginning school.

Parents face a “dilemma”: education in Chinese improves employment and career prospects, but it often comes at the cost of associating Tibetan with “social disadvantage”. Some are sending their children to Tibetan language classes in the school holidays, but authorities have been “cracking down” by “banning unsanctioned schools and classes in many places”.

Perhaps the most “profound policy shift” from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Tibet was the 2021 “Children’s Speech Harmonization Plan”, said Human Rights Watch. For the first time, it mandated the use of Chinese language as a “medium of instruction” in all preschools. Though not explicitly banning Tibetan in educational settings, it effectively “downgrades” the freedom for minorities to develop and continue their language.