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Uyghurs face an education dilemma
By Paloma Robles
BEIJING - Language, culture and identity have always been thorny issues in
northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Recent developments in the
educational system once again bring into the spotlight the delicate balance
between China's mainstream influence and the cultural and individual identities
of Uyghur minorities living in this region.
Two school systems
The population in Xinjiang is composed of 40% Han Chinese and roughly 60%
ethnic minorities, of which in turn 45% are Uyghur. As a result of this
multicultural and multilingual environment, the education system in the region
has had to accommodate different language needs.
The regional autonomy system was established in the 1950s and
granted a certain amount of control over local education to the autonomous
regions. For half a century, two separate school systems have co-existed in
Xinjiang.
In Chinese-language schools, education was provided in Chinese by ethnic Han
teachers and the ethnic minority language was taught as a subject. Minority
schools, on the other hand, offered Uyghur as the main language of instruction
and Chinese language as a subject. While an autonomous region retains the right
to establish its own curricula, most educational materials used in minority
schools are direct translations of Chinese-language materials used across
China.
Choosing an education has never been an easy task for Uyghur families. On the
one hand, minority schools, besides being less costly, provide children with a
better understanding of the Uyghur language, history and culture. They are the
alternative for parents who wish to preserve their cultural and religious
identity and provide their children with better chances of a successful
integration into the Uyghur society.
Besides, recent research suggests that Uyghur educated in Chinese-language
schools do not attain the same degree of fluency in their native tongue as
Uyghurs educated in minority schools.
On the other hand, students educated in Chinese-language schools generally come
out equipped with a better command of the Chinese language, and presumably,
also better chances of integration in mainstream culture and better prospects
of employment and career development. But this might not always be the reality.
Ilham Tohti, Uyghur professor of economics at Beijing's Central University for
Nationalities, argues that Uyghur graduates from Chinese-language universities
do not necessarily have a better foothold in the job market, especially in
government posts, as their failure to fully understand or identify with either
of those cultures might be regarded as a handicap by potential employers.
Students from minority schools who qualify for entrance to university must
spend an additional year learning Chinese to adequately cope with
university-level study. This is regarded as an additional financial burden and
also taken into consideration by Uyghur families when making a decision about
school enrollment.
In general, parents find it difficult to weigh the cultural benefit of
attending a minority school against the presumed economic benefit of attending
a Chinese-language school.
Bilingual education
The new bilingual education policy was introduced in Xinjiang in 2002 and
required Chinese to be used as the language of instruction with a minority
language to be taught as a subject.
Implementation of the policy has been slow in many areas, due to the inability
to teach Chinese effectively. As a result of a shortage of minority teachers
with good Chinese-language skills, Uyghur continues to be the main language of
instruction in many schools. Currently, only 25% of the total number of
students in Xinjiang receive bilingual education, China Daily reported.
One of the purposes of bilingual education was to improve Chinese-language
fluency among ethnic minority students and make them more competitive in the
job market. The tendency for parents to send their children to bilingual
education schools is also on the rise. For other members of the Uyghur
community, this policy is still regarded as a threat to the preservation of
both the Uyghur language and its culture.
There are reasons to be skeptical. Field research conducted by the
international organization, Save the Children, suggests the number of hours of
mother-tongue instruction is decreasing and what has been identified as
bilingual education by the Chinese authorities is nothing but education in
Chinese taught by ethnic minority teachers. According to the organization,
since 2007, in the Xinjiang city of Yining, students are required to learn
Chinese from grade one and learn basic skills in their mother tongue only from
grade four.
This situation raises questions about the future and about whether Chinese will
eventually become the only language of instruction for minority children.
As more Chinese is used in schools and the number of hours devoted to
mother-tongue instruction is reduced, Uyghur language teachers are taking early
retirement or being moved to other positions in the school. In many instances,
they have been replaced by Han Chinese teachers with better Chinese-language
skills but no appropriate teaching qualifications. According to Education
Bureau authorities, this has lowered the average quality of education in
Xinjiang.
Caught between two cultures
If bilingual education curtails the number of hours of mother-tongue
instruction, graduates from bilingual schools might in the future face similar
issues as those voiced by many Uyghur graduates from Chinese-language schools.
Akbar Emin, 28, from Altay, in northern Xinjiang, has received Chinese-language
education. He admits being trapped between two cultures, and at the same time
alienated from both. "Having attended a Chinese-language school, you never get
a real understanding of your own culture. It is difficult to integrate and feel
comfortable in social gatherings with people from your own culture. On the
other hand, no matter how good your Chinese is, and how successful your
assimilation into Chinese culture, in the eyes of other Han Chinese, you will
always remain a Uyghur, and therefore will always become the object of
intentional or unintentional prejudice and discrimination."
A large number of Uyghur graduates acknowledge the existence of a communication
gap between graduates from minority and Chinese-language schools. "Graduates
from minority schools look down on graduates from Chinese-language schools
because they have a poor understanding of their own language, culture and
history, whereas many Chinese-language graduates sometimes regard minority
school graduates as too narrow-minded," says Akbar.
Xinjiang is part of China's territory and helping minority students become more
fluent in Chinese will benefit them from the perspective of social integration
and job opportunities. Significant improvements have been achieved in the field
of education. Since 1952, student enrollment in the region has increased
five-fold, according to government statistics. However, despite official
bilingualism, current education trends seem to favor a de facto monolingual and
mono-cultural model that threatens to put the language, culture and identity of
Uyghur communities at risk.
Paloma Robles is a freelance journalist living in Beijing.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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