Students stage protest against official language education plan
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Middle and high school students in several Tibetan regions in Qinghai Province took to the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday to protest a plan to make Chinese the standard teaching language in classrooms.
The protesters fear that the change would result in Tibetan no longer being the main language, while experts said the students may not understand the educational policy on language.
Such disputes over educational language seldom occur in China, a country with 56 ethnic groups. Putonghua, the official language spoken by most people in the country, also enjoys great popularity in ethnic schools, as students and their parents in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the Tibet Autonomous Region have told the Global Times they understand that it will help them better integrate into mainstream society.
A Tongren county spokesman surnamed Ji told the Global Times Thursday that students held a peaceful protest Tuesday morning, but Ji couldn't say how many students were involved and the reason for their action.
"No protesting happened again (in Tongren) in the following two days, and we are still probing the issue," She said, adding that no violence happened during the march.
Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao reported that between 5,000 and 9,000 students participated in the protest.
The report said the protest mainly targeted a plan issued by the provincial education department in September, which said that Putonghua, the standard spoken Chinese, and the standard written characters would become the main teaching medium, while students should learn ethnic languages.
The plan says bilingual lessons will be adopted in primary schools by 2015, meaning standard Chinese language will be the main medium, and ethnic language a supplement.
The Associated Press reported, quoting an unidentified teacher, that police did not intervene in the march and school administrators were not expected to punish participants.
High school students in other regions of Qinghai also took to the streets after the protest in Tongren.
Shao Lei, the manager of Bai Jia Hotel in Gonghe county, told the Global Times Thursday that a group of students marched on Wednesday morning.
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