CTA to Take Control of Tibetan Schools Across India

By Contact Staff / July 24, 2012;

CTSA students gather for assembly - Photo from www.ctsa.nic.in

For over 40 years, schools for Tibetan children have been funded and run by the Indian government’s Central Tibetan Schools Administration (CTSA). Currently, the CTSA operates 71 schools for nearly 8,000 students in Tibetan communities all over India.

If all goes according to plan, however, this will all change by 2014. In 2010, India’s then foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, visited Dharamsala and met with H.H. the Dalai Lama to discuss the future of these schools. As a result of these meetings and her observation of the Tibetan administration’s current capacities, Ms. Rao wrote to the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry recommending a transfer of school administration from the CTSA to the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala by 2014.

In 1961, following talks between His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama and India’s first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, a system of separate public schools for Tibetan children living in India was established to provide modern, quality education to Tibetan refugees with a focus on preserving their language, culture and heritage. For over 40 years, these schools have been funded and run by the Indian government’s Central Tibetan Schools Administration (CTSA). Currently, the CTSA operates 71 schools for nearly 8,000 students in Tibetan communities all over India.

After initial consideration in Delhi, officials felt that the process should be expedited. Now, in 2012, the CTA’s Department of Education is making consistent efforts to take over all management of education and welfare in these schools. The transfer was raised in recent meetings with the CTSA Board of Directors, the Kalon Tripa (Tibetan Prime Minister), the CTSA’s chairman, and other senior Indian leaders. A detailed take-over proposal was sent to the CTSA on 8 May, 2012.

The CTA has been highly successful at administering a number of its own schools, currently serving over 17,000 students. The schools are doing very well scholastically, with higher exam results than in the CTSA schools. Given recent concerns over the deteriorating quality of education in some CTSA institutions, officials hope that the CTA’s new management of these schools will improve their performance and be more beneficial to students.

Despite the change in administration, the CTSA will continue to fund these schools, all of which will remain affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education. The Indian teachers already employed by the CTSA will be given the option to either continue service with their present benefits or join other schools under the HRD Ministry. The only change in structure will be the addition of new Tibetan teachers, who will be engaged in Tibetan language instruction.