Protest in Inner Mongolia against new Chinese Education Policy.
In August this year, a new bilingual education system being enacted in China’s Inner Mongolia region is facing heavy protest by Ethnic Mongolians. A rare display of discontent from students and parents are opposing the requirement of the use of Mandarin in textbooks and instruction, starting from first grade. Previously, students would start learning Chinese in the second grade as a secondary language, while the Mongolian language was used for primary instruction in history, reading, and writing. However, the new education policy requires that all students start learning Chinese in the first grade as the primary language and will force the Mongolian language to become a secondary course.
The mass protests across the region are calling for repeal as the new policy is endangering not only the Mongolian language but as well as the Mongolian Cultural identity. Students and parents are boycotting schools and from a statement by Nuomin, the mother of a kindergarten student in Hulunbuir, “Many of us parents will continue to keep our kids at home until they bring Mongolian back in those classes”. Strikes against public schools involved parents and 3,00,000 students. As such, when the schools opened in September, only 40 Mongolian students registered for the term while only 10 students showed up on Day 1.
The current political party promotes these new policies as tools for assimilation into the Han mainstream and will allow students to better prepare and compete for Chinese jobs and universities. However, protest leaders believe this to be a purge of minority culture and the domination by the Han majority. The uncommon public protest is calling for change as they fear that the mainstream assimilation will ultimately lead to the erasure of the Mongolian Cultural identity.
This, however, is not the first bilingual education policy that has been enacted in other ethnic regions. Tibet and Xinjiang have experienced similar action, and have had their primary language of instruction changed to Mandarin, while the minority language becomes a second language class. Protests and tensions that have arisen from the policy are fueled by fear that they will lose their mother tongues. Due to the secular nature of Mongolian Culture, their language is their primary passing of tradition and cultural identity. As contrasted to the emphasis on Islam for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Buddhism for Tibetans, the Mongolian cultural identity is centered around their fleeting language inside Chinese borders. Public schools teaching Mongolian to students had a similar significance that Buddhist monasteries had for Tibetans and Islamic holidays for Uyghurs. The new policy is seen as a threat to that education, and thereby to the very existence of Mongolian cultural identity.
