(TibetanReview.net, Oct03’24) – China has emptied a monastery school in a historically Tibetan territory in Sichuan province by transferring on Oct 2 its remaining monk-students to government-run residential schools as it speeds up President Xi Jinping’s Sinicization drive for “fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” in ethnic minority areas.
China closed down in early July the Buddhist school of Lhamo Kirti Monastery, known among locals as Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery, in the province’s Dzoge (Chinese: Ruò’ěrgài) county of Ngaba (or Ngawa, Chinese: Aba) prefecture, which had nearly 600 students. The authorities ordered the parents to enrol their children in state-administered residential schools, reported the Tibetan service of rfa.org Oct 2.
Last month, Chinese officials transferred about 300 of these students to state-run boarding schools, the report said, citing local sources who could not be named for safety reasons.
And now, on Oct 2, the authorities have coerced the remaining, some 200 students, aged 15 to 18, to enrol in similar state-run institutions, leaving the monastery school bereft of any student.
These state-run boarding schools have been severely criticized as colonial in their orientation, separating children from their parents and subjecting the children to an alien Chinese-language curriculum that promotes loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
The authorities were stated to have previously summoned the students’ parents for patriotic re-education sessions and made them sign agreements not to enrol their children in monastic schools before the legal age of 18.
The Lhamo Kirti Monastery school was established in 1986 to provide foundational education to young monks before their advanced studies in Buddhist philosophy. It was temporarily closed in 2003, but reopened under the name of Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastic School, with focus on educating novice monks, the report said.
Chinese authorities have also shut down another school at Kirti Monastery in Ngaba county of the same prefecture, affecting some 1,000 students, rfa.org earlier reported in July.