Students of Sengdruk Taktse
The Chinese authorities are closing Tibetan schools in their sinicisation drive and there is now grave concern over the effects of these closures on the local communities involved. The closures mean that local students no longer have access to Tibetan medium education and their cultural education suffers as does local community adhesion. Of equal concern is the fate of local orphaned and destitute children who are now without access to formal schooling. These children are left with no further help and are unable to gain admission to other schools, reports Tibet Watch, an independent UK-based Tibet support and advocacy organisation.
Sengdruk Taktse Middle School in Darlak county, Golog in eastern Tibet, was forcibly shut by the Chinese authorities on July 8 with no official reason given for the closure. The school mostly accommodated orphans and destitute children from neighbouring regions. The students were scattered and registered in government-affiliated schools while those who had come from other regions, which in this case include Derge, Khyungchu and Dzachuka, are unable to register in new schools: their school identity card from Sengdruk Taktse school is now invalid and their identity cards are registered at their home addresses making them unable to register at new schools locally where they have been living.
The Tibetan Review reports “Only children who could produce their Household Registration Card [Ch: Hukuo], and their Resident Identity Card (Jūmín Shēnfènzhèng)”, are given admission to local government-run schools. The issue of a Resident Identity Card is dependent on the Registration Card. Tibet Watch continues, “Most of the private Tibetan schools, therefore, not only issue their address for the application of Resident Identity Card of the orphans but also provide a boarding facility at the school for them to live”. Without this safety net of the Tibetan schools, these children are destitute and sometimes homeless.
Rinchen Kyi
Photo : Tibet Watch
Teachers have been forbidden from providing shelter or help to those orphans; teachers are now kept under additional surveillance and other local Tibetans subject to random cellphone checks. One dedicated teacher from Sengdruk Taktse school, Rinchen Kyi, was arrested for helping former students once the school was closed, and has received ill treatment in detention.
Khandrul Jigme Kunsang Gyaltsen giving a speech during 2020’s graduation ceremony
Photo: RFA
Taktse was cofounded in 1999 by Khandrul Jigme Kunsang Gyaltsen, Abbot of the renowned Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, with priority of enrolling orphans, poor children and those without access to formal schooling. A group of alumni from the school has written a petition, citing the importance of Sengdruk Taktse to the children’s future, to Tibetan culture and aspirations of Tibetan nomads and farmers. The school remains shut, no update has been issued on the “legal status and ownership of its properties and its future”.
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