This is an original text of the magazine “Bitter Winter” by Lopsang Gurung that we post with the permission of “Bitter Winter”.
Below is the link to the original post.
https://bitterwinter.org/winter-school-break-china-prevents-tibetan-children-from-studying-tibetan-language

08 01 2025
Private lessons to improve the students’ skills in Tibetan have now been forbidden in favor of vacation homework in Mandarin and the study of Xi Jinping’s thought.
Schoolchildren in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) have a two-month winter break starting on November 30. There are winter breaks also in areas part of historical Tibet and now incorporates in Chinese provinces outside TAR, such as Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan and Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai.
These winter breaks are used by parents to educate their children, submitted to an education mostly or only in Mandarin at school, in Tibetan language, often with the use of private teachers.
No longer now. Private lessons of Tibetan language have being forbidden both in the TAR and other areas inhabited by Tibetans. In addition, to keep students busy and prevent them from devoting time to improve their skills in Tibetan, school have loaded them with vacation homework to be completed in Chinese, and including the study of speeches and writings by President Xi Jinping.
In Tibetan areas of Sichuan and Qinghai, the situation is even worse. The police monitor Tibetan students, not only making sure that they do not attend private lessons of Tibetan language but also prohibiting them from wearing religious symbols, visiting monasteries, and participating in religious activities.
In some cases, even their cell phones have been examined to check whether they participate in forbidden WeChat or social media groups teaching Tibetan or with a religious content.