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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has once again come under international criticism after organising an "International Academic Symposium on Boarding Education and Plateau Development" at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
The event, attended by scholars from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, was viewed as a calculated attempt to defend China's controversial boarding school system in Tibet, widely accused of erasing Tibetan culture and identity, as reported by Phayul. According to Phayul, Chinese state media gave extensive coverage to the symposium, portraying the boarding schools as models of "fair and high-quality education" designed for Tibet's unique geography and culture. State reports further claimed that these schools "respect ethnic traditions" while improving "educational equity." Such narratives form part of a broader propaganda drive to justify what rights groups have described as cultural colonisation under the guise of education. During the event, Zhalo, a researcher at the China Tibetology Research Center, praised the system for contributing to "educational advancement." Likewise, Mario Cavolo of the Center for China and Globalisation dismissed foreign criticism as "baseless," claiming that "Tibetan culture thrives within these schools." Michael Alan Crook of the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives added that the schools promote "mutual understanding" among ethnic groups. However, international experts and Tibetan rights organisations strongly dispute these claims, viewing the symposium as an effort to whitewash China's coercive assimilation policies. A 2025 report by the Tibet Action Institute (TAI), titled When They Came to Take Our Children, revealed how children as young as four are forcibly separated from their families, indoctrinated with Chinese nationalist ideology, and stripped of their Tibetan language and heritage, as highlighted by Phayul. TAI's earlier 2021 report, Separated from Their Families, Hidden from the World, estimated that nearly one million Tibetan children have been forced into these boarding institutions. UN experts have also voiced grave concern, warning that China's education policy promotes linguistic and cultural assimilation. Beijing's so-called education reforms in Tibet are less about empowerment and more about the systematic dilution of an ancient culture, as reported by Phayul. (ANI)
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