Education in Ganzi

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Education in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
by Pamela Logan, Dec 2, 1997

Classroom at the Dege Chengguan Jisu Primary School.

In October and November of 1997 I visited four schools in Kangding county, and talked to a great many people about the state of education in Kham. I did this because I wanted to find out how foreign aid can best be directed to support education, and to get enough facts and photos to write a good proposal. I confined my investigation to Ganzi Prefecture, which is where I have already been working for three years and have the best contacts. Here is what learned.

The overall situation

At present there are 85,000 children in primary school in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and 40,000 in middle school (up to age 18). According to a representative of the Ganzi prefectural Culture-Education Bureau (Chinese: Wenjiao Ju), 95% of primary-school age children in Ganzi attend school. This figure is disputed by others, who say that the percentage is more likely 80 or 70, or even less.

If one considers higher grades, the proportion of children attending school drops dramatically. There are very few senior middle school students (17- and 18-year-olds). For example, in all of Dege (Derge) county there are only ten students at this level, which is considered college-track. A junior middle school graduate can read and write Tibetan and Chinese, do basic math, and has even studied a little English. Most graduates of junior middle school either stop their education, or go into a trade school.

The main reason children don’t attend school is poverty, exacerbated by the long distance that must be traveled to reach the nearest school. Another reason is that parents don’t trust the schools, and fear their children becoming sinicized. Finally, some parents feel that education is not useful, especially for girls.

There are three main sources of income for schools: (1) Government subsidy of a huge number of poor students, (2) Conduct of businesses such as shops on the school grounds, , and (3) Families support of own children through payment of educational fees.

Prior to 1985 some schools were operated in tents to better reach the nomad population, but these were stopped in favor of boarding arrangements at centrally located schools. The government provides books, desks, and chairs free of charge. In all of the classrooms I visited, every student had a book open on their desk. These books were dog-eared and marked up, but there seemed to be an adequate supply.

The statistics for schools in Ganzi are as follows:

Primary 1224
Jr middle 22
Sr middle 19
Colleges 8 (including three teacher training academies)

In addition there is a Tibetan language school (Zangwen Xuexiao) where they teach art and other Tibetan subjects along with language to students aged 17-18. I have visited this school in past years; it is a very pleasant facility located above Kangding. (Formerly it was located in Ganzi County). The teachers and students are entirely Tibetan. This school is under Sichuan provincial authority, and not part of the Ganzi Prefecture system. In Kangding there is also a cadre school, presumably run by the CCP.

Conditions for teachers

There are some 8000 teachers in Ganzi.. From the fact that they are distributed among more than 1200 schools it is apparent that many of these teachers are sent out in ones and twos to remote districts where they may be the only educated person for miles around. They live in primitive conditions far from their homes and families. Some of them are not of the same nationality as the local population, and so it is very difficult for them to integrate with the community. The remarkable thing is that teachers in such situations are accepted at all by the locals, and are able to do their jobs. Yet evidently some of them are, because children from these remote areas do learn, some advance to higher levels, and a small but growing number go on to college.

Cheng Lianye is a Han 3rd and 4th grade teacher. She married a man in the forestry bureau who is assigned to the same rural Tibetan district of Jiagenba (sKyagan), in Kangding County. She seemed happy enough about her situation. She said “I’ve been here for 4 or 5 years. I like it here; summer is really beautiful.” About local customs, she said, “I can drink butter tea but I don’t like it too much!” She had learned some simple Tibetan, but her main language, and her language of instruction, is Chinese.

She is one of the lucky ones, because she is able to live with her husband and small daughter. Most young Han teachers assigned to Tibetan areas are doomed to batchelorhood, or separation from their spouses, until they can get themselves transferred somewhere else. They live in dormitory-style accommodations on the school campus, sometimes two to a room. At one place I saw that two women teachers had to share with one of their students, due to a shortage of student dormitory space. A 23-year-old single teacher, Wang Yong, told me “Conditions are difficult. I prepare my own meals, but I can’t get much meat and vegetables here.” His diet consists mainly of rice, potatoes, and tsampa.

Because of shortfalls in government funds, wages are frequently late. From the meager payments teachers must purchase food, clothing, and coal to heat their rooms in the winter. I didn’t see any televisions in any teacher’s room, nor is it very easy for them to communicate with their home towns. There lives are therefore almost completely isolated from the outside world.

Teacher retention is a big, big problem for education in Ganzi, and it’s getting worse as a developing economy provides more and more alternatives for bright, ambitious young people. Siliang Zhazi (Tib: Sonam Tashi), an educated Tibetan now working in a government office in Kangding said about Yajiang (Tib: Nyachuka) his home town, “Teachers are not so good anymore because they are thinking of money.”

Even in the top middle school in Kangding, an elite place where officials (both Han and Tibetan) send their children to study, suffers from morale problems among the teachers. Wu Bangfu, an English teacher who resigned in 1993 said “My salary was less than 200 yuan ($25) a month when I left. I asked the headmaster if I could go outside to make some [extra] money, but the answer was no. During that period my family was terribly poor. At my school, conditions were the best in the prefecture, but still most of the teachers wanted to get transferred to another unit.”

Wages for teachers now range from about 230 yuan ($28) per month for minimally qualified, new, or temporary teachers to 700 yuan ($87) per month for exceptionally well-qualified and experienced ones. By comparison, a bowl of noodles in a restaurant in Kangding costs about 5 yuan. A sweater costs about 150 yuan.

Salaries are based first on a teacher’s educational qualifications, next on number of years in service, and last on effectiveness in teaching. Hence there is not much incentive to achieve excellence in the classroom. The main route to advancement is further training, and teachers are regularly sent back to school in order to refresh their knowledge or learn new skills. Yet this continued training and opportunity for advancement does not seem to be enough to motivate teachers to stay within the profession if they have any other option.

Conditions for students

The counties of Ganzi Prefecture have a great disparity in wealth. Two counties, Kangding (Dardo) and Luding, are predominantly Han; Luding because it is located at a low elevation at the eastern edge of Ganzi, and Kangding because it contains the bustling prefectural capital. The other counties of Ganzi are overwhelmingly Tibetan and very poor. (The population of Dege County, for example, is 96.5% Tibetan ). Three counties--Baiyu (Tib: Pelyul), Derong, and Shiqu (Sershul)--are recognized as “national poor counties.” Four more--Xiangcheng (Chaktreng), Daocheng (Dabpa), and Dege (Derge)--are “provincial poor counties.”

The average per capita income for rural areas in Ganzi is about 700 yuan per year. The cost of sending one child to board and study is 80-90 per month at primary school, and 120 per month at middle school. Thus it can be seen that attending school would pose a severe financial hardship on most families if the government did not subsidize the cost.

Lucky are those children who can live at home while they attend school, for living conditions for boarding students are Spartan in the extreme. At a typical village primary school, buildings are usually low single-story longhouses divided into rooms, each of which has a door opening into the school courtyard. A single dormitory room is normally shared by five or six students sleeping on a large wooden platform. Broken windows, flaking plaster, leaking roofs, and cement floors are the norm. There is no running water at most schools, only a centrally located pump or well. Heat comes from a small unventilated coal burner placed in the middle of the floor. Food consists of tsampa and butter-tea, three times a day, with occasional additions of noodles, cabbage, or potatoes. Vegetables and meat are in very short supply. And because many of these children travel a long distance that includes several hours of walking to reach their school, they cannot bring much food from home and must rely solely on government-provided supplies.

Two boys in their quarters at Kyagen
Primary School, Kangding County.

Children living in school dormitories amounted to 1/3 to 1/2 the total number of pupils at the three district schools I visited. Very few of these are first grade students (7 years old), because the youngest students are served by satellite schools in villages that are closer to home. By the time they are in 3rd or 4th grade, however, local educational resources are exhausted and the children must become boarding students at more distant places. If the parents are unwilling to send their children away from home, a government official may come out to convince them. Children of the same age group from a given village or area are generally kept together in the same class. Class size ranges from 20 to 50 students depending on demographics.

Conditions at the Xinduqiao Middle School are considerably better than those of the primary schools I visited. Xinduqiao is not a large town, but it offers enough comfort to be somewhat more attractive to teachers. They have a new school building, completed with a loan from the World Bank in 1996. The student body numbers 208 boys and 212 girls, of whom 200 board at the school. The college-bound proportion hovers around 90% in the last three years. The school owns 42 personal computers that it uses to teach computer skills to students. The staff includes 34 Tibetan teachers and 10 Chinese.

Sherab Tshogyon is a seventeen year old student at the Xinduqiao school. She lives in a dormitory room with three other girls. Unlike the primitive dormitory accommodations of primary schools, this room is equipped with four separate beds--one for each girl--and a window. She comes from Jiangde District, an agricultural area 55 kilometers distant, and the journey home involves several hours of hiking on foot. She has seven brothers and sisters, one of whom is a student at the same school. When asked about her favorite course, she declared that it is Tibetan language. Her career aspirations were less well-defined. “I want to go to college” she said, when asked about her plans. And after that? “I want to see America!”

Sherab Tshogyon, student at the Xinduqiao
Bilingual Middle School.

This middle school was considered experimental when it was opened three years ago, because it offers a bilingual program (more on that later). The experiment is now considered a success by the government, and the school is a model for expansion of the bilingual concept. Yet it lacks many things that would be taken for granted in the poorest Western school. There is no running water on the campus (a water tower has been built, and plumbing installed, but the school lacks a pump to bring water from the well to the tower). There is no cafeteria; students carry food from the commissary to their rooms where they eat. Although there is space for a library in the new building, there are no books.

Teachers who instruct children in Tibetan areas are usually products of the educational system they are serving, which creates a vicious cycle of mediocrity. This problem is not unique to Tibetan areas, but afflicts to varying degrees all minority areas in China as well as impoverished Han areas. China has a strong “affirmative action” policy that lowers admission standards for minority students seeking admission to universities and teacher training colleges. For example, in 1995 the lowest acceptable test scores for Tibetan collage entrants was 210 for science and 230 for humanities, compared to 400 or more points for Han students. Thus, the system is churning out poorly-qualified teachers who are then sent to Tibetan towns and villages to bring up the next generation. Han teachers may have superior qualifications but are limited in language and are usually unwilling to be posted in rural Tibetan areas. Thus, the quality of teaching in the Tibetan countryside lags well behind that of more developed regions.

The problem of language

Most Tibetan children in Ganzi grow up hearing the Tibetan language spoken at home, and have little if any exposure to Chinese. Thus it is necessary for their first teachers to know Tibetan. In a typical primary school, during the first three grades the language of instruction gradually shifts to Chinese, and Han teachers may be (but are not necessarily) used thereafter. Any child aspiring to function in the outer world of towns and cities needs to know Chinese, and moreover higher educational pursuits all require fluency in the language of the Han majority. However government policy requires that they learn to read and write Tibetan as well, and schools with a significant Tibetan enrollment offer Tibetan instruction in middle school even if they emphasize Chinese as “the principal course.” Thus, Tibetan children have a double-burden of language acquisition. This burden poses an enormous challenge both to the children themselves and to those designing a curriculum to serve them.

Girl learns mathematics from a Tibetan language textbook.

The challenge grows even greater when one considers the huge variety of Tibetan dialects spoken even within Ganzi Prefecture, let alone the entire Tibetan plateau. For example, the languages of Dawu, Dege, and Xiangcheng are so different as to be almost mutually unintelligible. Yet the same Tibetan textbooks are used in all these areas, and indeed across the plateau. There does not seem to be any effort made to teach Tibetan children a form of “standard” (i.e. Lhasa) spoken Tibetan. Thus, Chinese is often the only spoken language common to Tibetans from disparate areas.

At bilingual schools students are offered a choice in the language of instruction: Tibetan or Chinese. The middle school in Xinduqiao, which I visited, is such a place. Bilingual instruction for middle school students has become possible only in the last five years because only recently have Tibetan language textbooks been produced in such subjects as mathematics, science, history, and health. At the bilingual middle school in Xinduqiao some 36% of the students opt for the Chinese course. This choice probably does not mean that Tibetans dislike their own tongue, but that fluency in written and spoken Chinese allows greater opportunities for future advancement. Which ever language the students choose for their principal course, the other is given as a second language.

The bilingual school experiment is considered by most leaders to be a success inasmuch as an increasing number of graduates are going on to higher education. Yang Jiaming, a professor of Tibetan language, said “The Xinduqiao school is the only one of its kind in all of Ganzi. It must be supported! There are other middle schools in Kangding and elsewhere but they teach in Chinese only.”

Once students reach university, there are very few Tibetan books to read outside the field of Tibetology itself. Development of a larger, more comprehensive Tibetan literature is thought by education researcher Baden Nima to be crucial to promoting education and development for Tibetans. He said, “we need to bring all the science knowledge of the world into Tibetan. If we don’t have modern concepts in our Tibetan society, then our children will become Chinese and our culture will be lost.”

The problem of culture

Baden Nyima, who hails from Danba County in Ganzi, holds the first doctorate degree in education ever earned by a Tibetan in China. Naturally, his principal concern is how to improve education for his people. He has written persuasively about the “culture gap” that exists when Tibetan students are enrolled in a Han-centered curriculum, and how the gap has a strong adverse influence on learning. He laments that Tibetan students are “required to memorize the poems of Li Bai and Du Fu, and no mention at all is made of [the Tibetan classic] the Biography of King Gesar of Ling...Can such teaching content arouse the students’ interest? No wonder the school attendance among school-aged children has always been so low!”

Most students who reach senior middle school level aspire to be government officials of one kind or another. These jobs are considered very cushy, offer a stable income, high status, and often the privilege of residing in a large metropolitan area. The young people entering such professions end up outwardly Sinicized, and the fear is often expressed that they have lost their Tibetan-ness. Yet it’s my observation that many of them retain a strong ethnic identity despite the outward appearance of assimilation. For example Tsewang is an electrician who received his training in a trade school in Guangdong Province, and now works at a hotel in Lhasa. Despite his years away and his mastery of the Chinese language, he is still a devoted Buddhist who traveled with me to Drepung Monastery where he joyfully bowed before every shrine. Another example is Gama Langjia, a high official in Ganzi Public Security. His home is furnished in impeccable Tibetan style, his kitchen produces authentic and delicious Tibetan food, and his living room a gathering place for all the Dege people living in, or passing through, Kangding. Among my friends and acquaintances I could cite many other instances of Tibetans who appear Sinicized in public, but in private are adamantly Tibetan.

Some do, however, lose touch with their roots. Yuan Xiaowen is a Tibetan born in the Liangshan region among Yi nationality people. Despite his credentials as a Tibetologist, he does not speak Tibetan, has never lived in a predominantly Tibetan area, and demonstrates little rapport with his kinsmen.

Yet ignorance of the Tibetan language does not necessarily mean erasure of Tibetan identity. For example, Deshi Yangjin is a painter who grew up in Kangding, attended Chinese language schools, is not overtly religious, and knows only a smattering of the language of her parents. Yet her paintings are all Tibetan in inspiration, and she has a strong desire to travel all over the plateau in order to gain insight into the lives of her people.

From these and other Tibetans I’ve known I have come to believe that Tibetan ethnic identity is alive and well despite shortcomings in the educational system. Yet if schools, textbooks, and teachers do not reinforce this identity, we will no doubt see it weaken over successive generations. Therefore it’s of paramount importance to develop a uniquely Tibetan curriculum, teaching all subjects--not just language or religion--from a Tibetan cultural perspective. For example, ecology could be taught as a natural extension of the Buddhist principle of respect for all living things, not as a matter of economics, aesthetics, or long-term human survival.

Baden Nima proposes that developing a uniquely Tibetan curriculum should be carried out in a new Center for Tibetan Cultural Development. A proposal for creation of this organization has been working its way through the Sichuan government, and although many officials have assented, one key leader is stalling. Until the time that such a center is created, modern subjects will continue to be taught in Chinese, with the result few Tibetans will be inspired to enter fields such as business, law, medicine, and engineering that are crucial to development.

Buddhism in education

In developing an educational system for Ganzi and other Tibetan areas, the government has entirely ignored an institution that has existed for centuries in Tibet: Buddhist monasteries. In Ganzi Prefecture today there are 475 active monasteries distributed among the eighteen counties. (this figure includes monasteries of Bon, Tibet’s indigenous shamanist faith). No doubt prior to 1950 there were even more. These institutions have as their primary activity the transmission of Tibetan scriptures and other writings which together constitute the bedrock foundation of Tibetan culture. Baden Nima writes that monasteries are strongholds of “a complete and graduated educational system with fairly comprehensive divisions, teaching contents, forms of instruction, academic sequences, and examination systems.”

Despite the rigor of traditional Tibetan schooling, it is not considered proper education by the government, and there is a deep social divide separating those Tibetans who undertake a monastic education and those who enter secular, government-sponsored schools. A monk who, after many years, completes advanced training in Buddhism and passes examinations to reach the rank of geshe (equivalent to a doctor of divinity), would be counted as illiterate by the government if he could not read Chinese. And indeed although he would possess advanced knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan astronomy or medicine, he would know little of modern physics, mathematics, computer science, or history of the world outside Tibet.

Boys in a summer study program at
Gengqing Monastery, Dege.

Not only is there is a wide chasm between monastic education and secular, but many parents are favoring the first over the second when a choice is offered. Baden Nima observes “many school drop-outs are learning the Tibetan language from their parents at home in preparation for taking entrance exams to monasteries.” Yet the “graduates” of the monasteries are ill-prepared to lead Tibetans into the 21st century.

One way to bridge the gap is to merge monastic and secular education, retaining the best aspects of both--or so says Tupten Tsering. He is a rinpoche (incarnate lama) from Dege who now works for the People’s Consultative Council in Kangding. As a Buddhist leader he knows of the deep devotion Tibetans, especially rural people, have for their faith. “In the winter children from the neighborhood of my monastery come for three months to study sutras. Old monks teach the young monks, and the government does not restrict this kind of activity. It’s my proposal that other subjects [besides Buddhism] be taught at the same time.”

Tupten Tsering’s idea is to construct a dormitory at the monastery, provide food, and hire teachers who can instruct the children on non-religious subjects. One drawback of this plan is that traditionally girls are not admitted to monastery schools, and if this custom cannot be changed then girls would miss out. Another problem is overcoming the conservative ideas of many monastery leaders. Yet despite these shortcomings, the plan is attractive, for it would circumvent parents’ natural reluctance to send their children into what they regard as an alien environment to be indoctrinated in ideas foreign to their culture. It has not been implemented, of course, because of a shortage of funds.

How foreign money can help support education in Ganzi

From the foregoing, it’s clear that there is an almost limitless need for assistance to education in Ganzi and indeed across the entire Tibetan plateau. Existing institutions, although flawed in some respects, are producing graduates who can assume roles as government officials, thereby empowering Tibetans with greater control over governance of their lands. A few graduates eschew the perquisites of officialdom to join the small but growing ranks of a genuine Tibetan intelligentsia independent of the monastic system. This is a very encouraging sign.

Tibetan ethnic identity is clearly watered down by the practice of requiring Tibetans to use Chinese as a medium of learning, but it is not destroyed. Furthermore the government is making good-faith efforts to foster and develop Tibetan language instruction materials. Support of existing institutions is therefore a useful and appropriate way to promote Tibetan education. The influence a foreign organization can have on matters of government policy such as the curriculum and teaching system, is minimal, and it is not appropriate for the Kham Aid Foundation to become involved in these matters. Yet where innovations (such as Baden Nima’s proposed Center for Tibetan Cultural Development, and Tupten Tsering’s proposed joining of secular and monastic learning) , are already being generated internally, and especially where the only obstacle to implementation is money, they can be encouraged without risk of undue interference.

With these thoughts in mind, I propose the following areas for fund-raising:

Support for teachers through improved housing, awards for excellence, better wages, more training, “Master Teacher” programs, and the like.
Support for students in the form of scholarships, renovated dormitories, food assistance, and clothing.
Support for school infrastructure through donations of equipment such as computers, television/VCR systems, science materials, plumbing, lighting, and heating. Also, of course, the construction of new schools in areas where there are none.
Support for development and publication of books in Tibetan.
Support for innovative teaching concepts, such as introducing secular teachers into monastery teaching programs.
Support for the Center for Tibetan Cultural Development, assuming that its creation wins approval by the government.

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