The Silencing of Classrooms: Beijing’s Assault on Tibetan Education

By Khedroob Thondup

In the high grasslands of Golog, where nomadic families have long relied on community schools to preserve their language and culture, three doors have been slammed shut. The Golok Tadrak Orphan School, the Ra‑Gya Jigme Gyaltsen Grassland Girls’ School and a small village school in Jasag have all been forcibly closed by Chinese authorities. These closures are not isolated administrative decisions; they are part of a deliberate campaign to erode Tibetan identity by dismantling the very institutions that nurture it.

Why These Closures Matter

Language as identity: Tibetan schools are more than classrooms; they are sanctuaries where children learn to read, write and think in their mother tongue. Closing them severs the transmission of culture from one generation to the next.

Targeting vulnerable groups: The orphan school and the girls’ school served those most in need—children without families and young women who are often denied equal opportunities. Their closure disproportionately harms the marginalised.

Community resilience: Village schools in places such as Jasag were built through local initiative, funded by donations and sustained by volunteers. Shutting them down is an attack on grassroots self‑determination.

The Political Logic Behind the Closures

 Beijing’s policy is clear: Tibetan-language education is seen as a threat to “stability.” By forcing Tibetan children into Mandarin-only schools, the authorities aim to assimilate them into a homogenised national identity. 

Control through assimilation: Mandarin becomes the gatekeeper to jobs, advancement and survival. Tibetan is relegated to the private sphere, stripped of institutional legitimacy. 

Suppressing cultural autonomy: Independent schools represent a form of local agency. Their closure signals that even modest autonomy in education is intolerable. 

Fear of collective memory: Schools teach history and help children learn about their heritage. Silencing them is a way to control what Tibetans remember—and what they forget.

The Human Cost

For the children of Golog, the closures mean displacement. They must now attend state-run boarding schools, often far from home, where the Tibetan language is marginalised and political indoctrination is routine. Parents lose the ability to shape their children’s education, while communities lose the institutions that anchored them.

Closing the orphan school leaves vulnerable children without a safe haven. The girls’ school’s closure denies young women the rare opportunity to learn in an environment that values their voices. The village school’s closure extinguishes a flame of local initiative.

A Pattern of Restriction

This is not new. Across Tibet, privately run schools have been shuttered, Tibetan textbooks have been replaced with Mandarin-language ones, and teachers have been punished for resisting. The closures in Golog fit a broader pattern: the systematic dismantling of Tibetan‑language education.

Conclusion

 The closure of these schools is not about education; it is about control. By erasing Tibetan classrooms, Beijing seeks to erase Tibetan futures. Yet the resilience of Tibetan communities has always been their answer to repression. The challenge now is whether the world will recognise that the silencing of classrooms is as grave as the silencing of protests.

Education is the seed of identity. To close a school is to close a future.