Tibetan hauled out of university for alleging selection discrimination in civil service test essay

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Minzu University. (Photo courtesy: tibet.cn)

(TibetanReview.net, Apr18’19) – A Tibetan youth was hauled out of his university in the beginning of this month for an essay he wrote in his civil service exams lamenting the declining rate of acceptance of Tibetans for jobs in their own local-level governments, reported the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Apr 16.

The report said Sonam, a master’s degree candidate at Northwest Minzu University in Gansu province’s Lanzhou city, was seized from his school by officials from the Tibet Education Bureau in China.

The report added that he had remained in detention ever since.

Sonam’s essay written, in Chinese, was cited as complaining about an annually declining number of seats for Tibetans in the local Chinese government civil services. The essay was reportedly being widely shared on social networking sites, including WeChat.

His lamentation was stated to be a common complaint among Tibetans many of whom were increasingly frustrated by lack of government jobs that were in recent years being reportedly grabbed by the ever rising number of Chinese immigrants.

Of the 70,000 Tibetans who sat for the civil service exams this year in Tibet (Autonomous Region), only 210 were selected, the report said, quoting an unnamed local source.

Last year, some 40,000 in Tibet Autonomous Region were stated to have sat for the Chinese civil service exams, with only about 3,000 making it successfully.

The selection criteria were stated to be increasingly set to favour Chinese applicants.

Not only have Tibetans to compete against ever increasing number of Chinese applicants but also the requirements of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese in the tests and consideration for employment means they are at severe disadvantage. Sinicization of the Tibetan society and governance is seen as the underlying reason for this approach of the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialist with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

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