Education

2004-03-01 18:00

Education System In Old Tibet, with the exception of schools within the monasteries and government-run schools for the sons of aristocrats and monk officials, there were no schools in the modern sense. More than 90 percent of the population was illiterate or semiliterate. Today an educational system comprising preschool, primary, secondary and specialized secondary education as well as tertiary, vocational and adult education and TV classes is basically in place..

Currently, 67 percent of school-age children attend school. By 1994, Tibet had 3,500 schools at all levels, including 4 institutes of higher learning (Tibet University, Tibet Institute of Ethnic Peoples, Tibet College of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, and Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine), 16 specialized secondary schools teaching education, agriculture and animal husbandry, finance and economics, sports, arts, post and telecom-munications, over 70 ordinary secondary schools and over 3,400 primary schools.

Total student enrollment exceeds 270,000. The majority of students in schools of all types at all levels are Tibetans or other national minorities. The region also cooperates with local partners in jointly operating more than 70 specialized secondary schools attended by 10,000 Tibetan students in 21 provinces and municipalities elsewhere in China.

The government has substantially increased investment in modern schools since the 1980s. Many policies providing special treatment or material benefits have been implemented. These include government-paid education for ethnic Tibetan students from primary school through college, a policy of supplying food, clothing and accomodation free of charge to some ethnic Tibetan primary and secondary students and the use of boarding schools in rural areas, a student grant and scholarship system which is step by step being put in place at primary and secondary schools above the township level, schools of all types al all levels drawing the bulk of their student body from the local populace and ethnic Tibetans and other local minority peoples receiving priority in enrollment at colleges and secondary and specialized schools, teachers from more developed parts of China being dispatched to Tibet to work where they are needed to further education, and Tibetan secondary schools and Tibetan classes within other schools being opened elsewhere in China where conditions for education are comparatively better with special treatment given Tibetan students in their studies and their living conditions.

The government has also given support and attention to setting up specialized schools, departments, and courses dealing with Tibetan language, medicine, art, history and other aspects of Tibetan culture. Teaching in the Tibetan Language Stressed Most instruction in the majority of primary schools in Tibet is given in Tibetan.

Teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry above the junior middle school level in Tibetan will require a period of preperation until necessary conditions, such as finding qualified teachers and the compilation and translation of teaching materials, are met.

Accordingly, classes above the junior middle school level are currently taught using four formats: first, offering courses in Tibetan and Chinese languages, with all other courses being taught in Tibetan, second, teaching some classes in Chinese and some in Tibetan; third, offering a course in Tibetan language with the rest of the courses being taught in Chinese; fourth, teaching the entire curriculum in Chinese.

Primary and secondary education in Tibet trains students to meet the requirement that they master both Tibetan and Chinese before they graduate from senior middle school. Classes in foreign languages are offered at the junior middle school level and above in schools with the proper conditions In Tibetan-operated secondary schools and Tibetan classes in other schools elsewhere in China Tibetan language courses taught by Tibetan teachers are uniformly provided during junior middle school.

Teachers independently plan their courses according to the common syllabi for the nation's ordinary high schools, at the same time making allowances for their Tibetan students' actual circumstances. Institute of Buddhism The regional government funded Institute of Buddhism provides instruction in the Buddhist sutras and other works and religions history by famous Living Buddhas and Buddhist scholars All major monasteries have classes studying sutras.

In addition, each year a number of fairly large scale expositions and debates on the sutras are arranged. Some of the larger monasteries have the capacity to cut blocks and print sutras. There is the China College of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing