NYT EXPOSÉ: MASS SYSTEM OF ABUSIVE BOARDING SCHOOLS IN TIBET
New York Times investigation finds Tibetan children suffering widespread and systematic physical and psychological harm, cultural erasure in Chinese government-run boarding system
For Immediate Release
January 9, 2025
Boston – A groundbreaking exposé in the New York Times published today paints a disturbing picture of the severe mental, emotional, and physical harms being inflicted on an entire generation of Tibetan children in China’s colonial boarding schools [1]. The multimedia feature story documents through visual evidence and research how Tibetan children are subject to political indoctrination, mistreatment, and abuse while in a massive system of schools designed to strip them of their cultural identity, including their mother tongue. All of these practices violate multiple international human rights treaties Beijing has signed, and are aimed at subduing opposition to Chinese rule in occupied Tibet.
The New York Times feature includes rare photos and video of these boarding institutions: small children in bunk beds, drawings celebrating China’s rule of Tibet, songs of appreciation to the Chinese Communist Party, a video titled “Be A Civilized Person, Speak Mandarin” by a Tibetan fourth-grader, and accounts from teachers of gruelingly long days. The article also highlights warnings from within the Chinese system about psychological and emotional damage, as well as risk of abuse, from separating Tibetan children from their families and placing them in institutions. The fallout from this practice has only intensified in recent years as the boarding school system has expanded to include preschool. Tibetan educational sociologist Dr Gyal Lo has estimated that at least 100,000 children ages 4-6 are in boarding preschools [2].
Alarming new information in the feature includes an incident of an elementary school teacher beating a child with a chair in his classroom in 2021 that was captured on CCTV and shared over 1,000 times on social media before being censored. The beating reportedly left a three-inch-long wound on the child’s forehead. A 16-year-old living in a Tibetan village in eastern Tibet (Chinese: Sichuan Province) told the New York Times journalist that beatings by teachers were “a constant” at the boarding school he attended and he had “several scars on his back from beatings, sometimes by hand and other times with a wooden ruler” [3].
“This New York Times exposé is a damning indictment of China’s colonial schooling system that targets an entire generation of Tibetan children, including even the youngest and most vulnerable preschoolers” said Lhadon Tethong, Director of Tibet Action Institute. “The new evidence presented in this investigation, seen together with prior research and analysis from Tibet Action Institute, show that Chinese leaders are knowingly committing egregious crimes against Tibetan children and their families. Governments must use every available diplomatic tool to hold them to account and ensure the boarding school system is abolished.”
A follow on report to Tibet Action Institute’s 2021 report that first exposed the colonial boarding school system in Tibet [4] is forthcoming in early 2025 and will provide new evidence of neglect and abuse, as well as updated information about China’s colonial boarding school system in Tibet. The report will document continued expansion of both preschool and grade school boarding, and intensification of the forcible transfer of monks and nuns under 18 from monastery schools to state boarding schools. The report will examine CCP efforts to ensure that Tibetan children “will study in a school, live in a school, and grow up in a school” [5] and how parents are coerced into relinquishing their children into the colonial boarding system.
“Thanks to independent investigations such as this by New York Times journalists, China’s plan to steal Tibet’s future right in front of our eyes is being exposed,” said Dr Gyal Lo. “We are at a critical juncture where our national identity as Tibetans is under grave threat. What is needed is substantial international intervention to pressure China to shut down the boarding school system, reopen Tibetan-run schools, and reinstate Tibetan language as the medium of education.”
Media Contacts:
Lhadon Tethong, Director, Tibet Action Institute +1 (917) 418-4181
Dr. Gyal Lo, Tibet Specialist, Tibet Action Institute +1 (647) 619-9821
Email enquiries: [email protected]
Notes for Editors:
[1] Boarding Schools in Tibet Reshape the ‘Souls of Children’ By Chris Buckley, Jan. 9, 2025
Feature article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/09/world/asia/tibet-china-boarding-schools.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n04.7g4a.wDEG3hdI4b45&smid=url-share
[2] See: “Eyewitness: China Operating Mandatory Boarding Preschools Across Tibet”, Tibet Action Institute, May 24, 2022: https://tibetaction.net/eyewitness-confirms-mandatory-boarding-preschools-operating-across-tibet/
[3] See Note [1]
[4] In December 2021, Tibet Action Institute’s report revealed that approximately 800,000-900,000 Tibetan students ages 6-18 were living in a vast system of Chinese government-run colonial boarding schools. This report alerted the world to the plight of Tibetan children and parents and led UN experts to express alarm at a residential school system that they said was “aimed at assimilating Tibetan people culturally, religiously and linguistically.” https://tibetaction.net/colonial-boarding-school-report/
[5] See “Decision of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Ethnic Education,” State Council, National Document [2015] 46, issued August 11, 2015, section 19: www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-08/17/content_10097.htm
###