It’s the beginning of a new year, and that means it’s time for Xinhua to publish statistics. Most interesting to me are some new figures on the PRC’s efforts to promote “bilingual” education. “Bilingual” education here refers to “type two bilingual education” 第二類雙語教育/教學, the program to gradually replace non-Chinese-language education with strictly Mandarin-medium education. That is to say, parents are losing their established options, in place since the 1980s, in regard to choosing their children’s linguistic medium of education. The goal of education for minority children has become, simply, learning Mandarin. This policy is not, I should note, exclusive to Xinjiang, but could be seen as a logical extension of campaigns to displace local varieties of Chinese in the East.
In the autumn of 2004, upon the implementation of this program, which required all teachers to have attained a certain level of proficiency in Mandarin, many minority teachers lost their jobs. At the time, Xinjiang already had a shortage of teachers, and there have never been enough qualified teachers of Mandarin. These are problems reported in Chinese academic journals and books and the Xinjiang Daily. Late in 2005, and especially since 2006, the Xinjiang and national governments have made efforts to train non-Chinese teachers in Mandarin, usually by sending teachers selected by local ministries of education to major universities for 18-month courses and teaching practica. In light of this, the report on Xinhua’s site announcing plans to train 16,000 more “bilingual” teachers
over the next six years seems slightly disingenuous, since it emphasizes the preservation of “culture” along with the promotion of Mandarin as a national standard. However, the acknowledgement that this policy has a long way to go before it can be implemented properly is refreshing and shows a certain realism. The government is clearly interested in establishing Mandarin proficiency among the next generation of non-Han Xinjiang people, and the renewed investment in this program demonstrates that they are dedicated to a more permanent implementation to what was basically a poorly-considered, political policy.
Xinhua further report plans for 1,237 new bilingual kindergartens in accordance with the “National ethnic minority ‘bilingual’ kindergarten construction project”. Under this project, the government has also raised rural bilingual kindergarten teachers’ salaries to 800 RMB/month. The PRC has dedicated 3.8 billion RMB to this project, with 1.7 billion RMB going to bilingual kindergarten teacher training. The goal is to have 80% of Xinjiang kindergarten-age children in bilingual schools by 2012.
The bilingual education program will make a special effort in southern Xinjiang, where 1,111 pre-school teachers and 575 students are already in two-year programs, as part of the “Xinjiang Poor Areas Pre-School ‘Bilingual’ Teacher Cultivation and Training Plan”. It is estimated that 5,600 teachers will be trained under this plan over the next three years.
Late in January, Tianshan.net also published a lengthy article concerning a visit to a bilingual school in a village near Kashgar. The author’s observations, although strongly colored by clear political leanings and a sickly-sweet adulation for bilingual education, make for interesting reading. Among points of interest: Teachers of Mandarin include local teachers who have studied the language themselves, graduates of Mandarin courses, and students sent from universities for practica. In bilingual kindergarten classes for children with the least Mandarin language, there are two teachers, one who speaks in Mandarin, and another who translates. The article pays special attention to the opportunity some Xinjiang students have to study in high schools in the interior of the country, an experience that many find more alienating than enlightening. (For more on Xinjiang students in the Interior, see a recent book by a Chinese author… the title escapes me.)
Comments 9
Could the title yu mention at the nd of the post here be this one?:
Muslim Uyghur students in a Chinese boarding school: social recapitalization as a response to ethnic integration
Author(s):
Posted 03 Feb 2009 at 12:59 pm ¶Chen,Yangbin
Publication Information (Date):
Emerging perspectives on education in China, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, (2008)
Yes, that’s exactly it! Thank you.
Posted 03 Feb 2009 at 8:07 pm ¶Interesting statistics indeed. The Xinhua report illustrates the clear economic incentives for teachers to work in “bilingual” schools. In addition, I would be interested to find out if there are statistics on the teachers who lost their jobs when the policy first took hold, especially on their ability to find new jobs of a comparable professional standard.
The move to educate non-Han Chinese students in Mandarin also includes a policy to establish “Xinjiang classes”, which were set up in 12 Chinese cities in 1997 and provided a new model in the marginalization of languages other than Mandarin.
“Xinjiang classes” remove top non-Han Chinese students from their cultural environment and enroll them in classes with Chinese language instruction in high schools in large inland Chinese cities.
Wang Lequan, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Party Secretary,confirmed that “political thought training”, not academic preparation, was the chief goal of these “Xinjiang classes”. Officials view training in Chinese as a way to “deepen national feelings” and “strengthen correct political attitudes” as part of a “long term important strategic policy decision… to protect the unity of the motherland and safeguard the nation’s long and peaceful order”.
In some of these schools speaking languages other than Mandarin is prohibited, even in student dormitories, where pupils are watched by an on-site monitor. Children from one “Xinjiang class” in Qingdao were forbidden to communicate in Uyghur, even when visited by an officially approved ethnic Uyghur journalist. By 2006, “Xinjiang classes” had been expanded from 12 to 26 Chinese cities and had a total enrollment of over ten thousand students.
The Chinese sources for this policy can be found at:
- Su Jiaoji, Circular on the ‘Summary of the Meeting on Provincial Inland Xinjiang High School Classes’, Jiangsu Department of Education, June 6, 2006. [苏教基,《全省内地新疆高中班教育工作座谈会会议纪要》的通知, 江苏省教育厅文件, 2006-6-6].
- The Chief Task of Inland Xinjiang High School Classes is Ideological Political Training, Online International, June 24, 2005 [思想政治教育是内地新疆高中班的首要任务, 国际在线 2005-6-24].
- Xinjiang Will Have 5000 Students Attend Inland High Schools This Year, Xinjiang Daily Net, February 14,2007 [新疆今年将有5000学生赴内地高中就学,新疆日报网, 2007-2-14].
Lastly, and to balance official Chinese documentation on language policy, I would suggest interested readers take a look at the Uyghur Human Rights Project’s report on bilingual education, Uyghur Language Under Attack: The Myth of “Bilingual” Education in the People’s Republic of China. It is available at:
http://uhrp.org/docs/UyghurLanguageUnderAttack.pdf
Posted 04 Feb 2009 at 2:18 am ¶The Chen book is fairly bland and theoretically bereft but reading between the lines some gems appear. Basically promotion of Chinese language and the neidi Xinjiang classes are framed as a security issue as part of the party’s overall drive for identity management. Other references i’ve come across in Chinese confirm this as it is expected students will return to Xinjiang with wonderful impressions of neidi and will promote han chinese culture and ethnic harmony in Xinjiang. And of course their cultural level will be raised! The Chen book argues the problem with this is technical not theoretical such that Uyghurs are actually segregated from Han Chinese when they study in neidi. For me this is not technical , they are segregated because they are deemed security threats and this says a lot about Uyghurs ‘othered’ role in zhonghua minzu.
Thanks for the links OpkeHessip and Kashkarlik, most useful.
Posted 06 Feb 2009 at 7:01 am ¶Ok anyone know exactly what the “三金”问题 is?
Posted 06 Feb 2009 at 7:29 am ¶As far as I know 三金 can have a few different meanings. It could be 住房公积金、医疗金、养老保险金 or perhaps more often 医疗、退休、失业 but I have seen variants of these as well. There seems to be a difference between mainland and 港澳台 usage.
Posted 07 Feb 2009 at 5:34 pm ¶Opkehessp I’m going to have to be totally irrelevant and ask you why your Mandarin rendition of “Type 2 Bilingual Education” is in traditional characters.
Posted 07 Feb 2009 at 11:53 pm ¶Ohh… Yeah. Habit. Sorry. 第二类双语教育/教学.
Posted 08 Feb 2009 at 2:35 pm ¶Looking forward to your 2010 update on the issue of “bilingual” education in Xinjiang. According to the New York Times, the new plan is to “promote bilingual education in all [Xinjiang] schools by 2015.”
What does this “bilingual” here *really* mean?
Can we expect Han students to start cramming for exams in Uighur grammar? Or just the usual “This-is-China-why-don’t-you-minorities-speak-our-language” approach?
Posted 29 May 2010 at 6:08 am ¶