OPINION
Calling China’s secretive, coercive, and repressive boarding school system that incarcerates nearly a million Tibetan children a profound violation of the world’s shared commitment that every child should grow up secure in their identity, language, and family’s love, Aritra Banerjee* says the global community has a moral responsibility to intensify pressure on Beijing to end these colonial-era practices.
In the remote highlands of Tibet, a silent crisis is unfolding, one that threatens not just the present generation, but the very future of a people. For over seventy years since China’s occupation of Tibet, successive Chinese governments have struggled to quell Tibetan resilience. Despite waves of political repression and militarized surveillance, Tibetans have maintained their distinct language, Buddhist faith, and national consciousness. Having failed to suppress Tibetan identity through brute force, Chinese authorities have turned their focus to the most vulnerable: Tibetan children. Now, a new front has opened in this existential struggle: the mass removal of Tibetan children from their families and communities into a vast network of state-run boarding schools.
On paper, Beijing touts its boarding school policy as a noble effort to uplift Tibet’s “backward” regions—bringing modern schooling to scattered herders. But behind the glossy narratives lies a dark reality. These schools are not simply providing education; they are fundamentally reshaping Tibetan children’s identities, cutting them off from their language, traditions, and families during the most formative years of their lives.
The strategy is chilling in its simplicity. By removing children from their families and immersing them in state-controlled environments from the age of four, China seeks to reshape the very fabric of Tibetan society. As per the recent report by tibetaction.net, more than 800,000-900,000 Tibetan children aged 6-18 live in government-run boarding schools, with at least 100,000 preschoolers also in residential facilities. Given below are the effects of boarding schools on Tibetan children: –
The destruction of language and family bonds
For Tibetans, their classical tongue holds centuries of Buddhist philosophy, literature, and oral traditions. Yet inside these boarding schools, Tibetan is sidelined to the point of extinction. Tibetan children are immersed almost entirely in Mandarin. Tibetan classes, where they exist, are often of poor quality or treated as non-core electives. The forced separation goes far beyond language. Boarding school means missing out on family festivals and the daily bonds of home life. Chinese authorities frequently keep children in school during major Tibetan holidays, while releasing them for Chinese national festivals. Even parents who live close to schools are often compelled to have their children board, under regulations that apply only to Tibetan pupils.
Crushing religious identity
For centuries, monasteries were Tibet’s centers of learning and spiritual life, where many families sent at least one child to become a monk or nun. Under China’s compulsory education policy, young novices are forcibly removed from monasteries and enrolled in state-run schools. Parents who resist face intimidation, fines, and threats of losing social benefits or identification papers. New rules ban Tibetan children from participating in religious activities even during school breaks. Families are forced to sign pledges that their children will not attend religious classes or rituals. The result is a deliberate rupture of intergenerational spiritual transmission.
Psychological scars and disturbing abuses
These boarding schools have also become sites of profound psychological harm. Reports have surfaced of preschool dormitories where toddlers share beds, tied with straps to prevent falling. Older students, too, face harsh discipline and sometimes outright violence. According to an article published in www.phayul.com, a shocking video from Chamdo No. 1 Elementary School showed a teacher repeatedly beating a Tibetan child with a chair, causing a deep wound on the child’s head. Other testimonies describe children forced to sleep with their heads on desks for lack of proper bedding, or being denied adequate food, leading to malnutrition.
For Tibetan families, boarding is not a choice but a state-imposed mandate. China’s policies in Tibet directly violate its own Constitution and laws, which guarantee ethnic minorities the right to use their language and preserve their customs. United Nations bodies have repeatedly condemned China’s actions. As per the article published in www.tibet.net, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called on Beijing to “abolish immediately the coerced residential (boarding) school system imposed on Tibetan children.” Nevertheless, China refuses to comply, persisting with policies that forcibly assimilate Tibetan children and erode their distinct identity
China’s policy in Tibet is not an isolated case, but part of a broader strategy it has historically used to suppress distinct identities in regions under its control. Similar tactics of forced assimilation, cultural erasure, and state-controlled education have been documented in Xinjiang against Uyghurs, as well as in Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong. In each case, Beijing targets the younger generation—removing children from their cultural roots, restricting native language education, and imposing Mandarin and Communist Party ideology.
China’s boarding school system is a deliberate strategy to erase Tibet as a distinct nation. Despite mounting international concern and repeated calls from United Nations committees, Beijing continues to separate Tibetan children from their families and immerse them in state-controlled environments. Tibetans cannot fight this battle alone. The global community has a moral responsibility to act. Governments must intensify pressure on Beijing to end these colonial-era practices and support Tibetans’ rights to manage their own schools, taught in their language and rooted in their faith and traditions. This act of China is a profound violation of the world’s shared commitment that every child should grow up secure in their identity, language, and family’s love.
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* Aritra Banerjee is a Defence, Foreign Affairs & Aerospace Journalist, Co-Author of the book ‘The Indian Navy @75: Reminiscing the Voyage’ and was the Co-Founder of Mission Victory India (MVI), a new-age military reforms think-tank. He has worked in TV, Print and Digital media, and has been a columnist writing on strategic affairs for national and international publications. His reporting career has seen him covering major Security and Aviation events in Europe and travelling across Kashmir conflict zones. Twitter: @Aritrabanned