(TibetanReview.net, Jan20’26) – The number of Tibetan students sent to study in classes especially set up for them in schools in various provinces of China has increased in recent years in keeping with Beijing’s intensified drive to Sinicize Tibet and set a new record last year, reported the Tibetan-language tibettimes.net Jan 19, citing Chinese government sources. The number of such classes has also seen a sharp increase in order to accommodate the additional students.
The report cited a recent announcement from the Shigatse City government, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), as saying that in 2025, a total of 10,500 students from across Tibetan regions were enrolled in Tibet Classes set up in schools in provinces and provincial-level cities across China. It was stated to have been announced as the highest number of enrolment of Tibetan students in such classes in such schools in China thus far.
Data from the Education Bureau of the TAR government was stated to show that in 2025, a total of 2,000 Tibetan students were enrolled in junior middle school classes in China with the total number of classes increased to 150. Likewise, a total of 4,500 Tibetan students were stated to have been enrolled in senior middle school classes in China and the number of such classes increased to 205. Also, a total of 4,000 Tibetan students were enrolled in middle vocational education schools in China with the number of such classes increased to 223.
Among those enrolled in senior middle school classes, a total of 3,215 were stated to have been from TAR and the remaining 785 from Qinghai. Qinghai constitutes the bulk of the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo (or Domey).
All this was stated to have been in keeping with plans to increase the number of Tibetan students sent to China to 10,500 and the number of Tibet class students in schools set up in China to 578.
* * *
Contending that Tibetans will remain backward and so forth if they continued to be engrossed in religion, the Chinese government has been taking Tibetan students, aged from 10 to around 20, to study in schools in China for many years, These are among the brightest students in Tibet and the aim is to Sinicize them as well as to use them to Sinicize other Tibetans when they return after studying in China where education is provided free of cost to them, Dawa Tsering, former director of the Tibet Policy Institute, which part of the Central Tibetan Administration, has said.
China expanded its policy to enrol students from Tibet in such schools in 2023, with their numbers increased by 9.9% each successive year. Besides, more than 70% of those students were stated to have been drawn from farming, nomadic, and border Tibetan communities.
It was in 1984 that China took the decision to set up classes in schools in China for students from Tibet, claiming education in Tibet was backward; that there was paucity of skilled people there. The first of such classes were set in schools in 16 provinces and province-level cities in China.
The programme was continuously expanded over the following four decades, Today, these schools have been set up in 120 schools in 23 provinces and 60 cities throughout China. A total of 25,000 Tibetan students are enrolled in the Tibet classes in those schools.
A total of 180,000 Tibetan students have studied in those schools thus far, the report said.
In 1996, China’s State Council published a document titled “Regarding the Expansion of the Scale of Inland Tibet Classes Schools” (关于内内地西西藏班（校）扩大规规模有有关问问题的请示), which said in Tibetan classes had been set up in schools in 16 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hubei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Hainan, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shanxi, and Chongqing. The preface of the document stated that this task is a political responsibility, and it required high attention, strict organization, and strong support to ensure the success of the work, the report noted.