China has approved a sweeping new law which claims to help promote “ethnic unity” - but critics say it will further erode the rights of minority groups.
On paper, it aims to promote integration among the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, dominated by the Han Chinese, through education and housing. But critics say it cuts people off from their language and culture.
It mandates that all children should be taught Mandarin before kindergarten and up until the end of high school. Previously students could study most of the curriculum in their native language such as Tibetan, Uyghur or Mongolian.
I’m Basque, we are “forced” to learn Spanish too since it’s a co-official language in out autonomous region of Spain.
This post might sound alarming to monolingual people, but for any multilingual that had to learn both official languages AND english, watching people complain about schools requiring extra languages is embarrassing.
Unless I’m misunderstanding the post, it doesn’t imply that most lectures need to be in Mandarin, only that the kids need to be taught the language, right?
Edit: I read the post. The language thing doesn’t matter, what’s alarming is actually this:
If it were actually about language and communication, that bit wouldn’t be there.
Catalan here, always funny to see monolinguals be shocked when China does it but turn around and see nothing wrong with Spain imposing Spanish to all its regions in the same way
If Spain doesn’t get in line on the Iran War, I’m confident we’re going to start getting stories about how we need to liberate Catalonia soon enough
Shit.
There are restrictions on teaching the Tibetan language. This seems like an authoritarian move, not an educational one.
https://thetibetpost.com/news/tibet/china-imprisons-tibetan-monk-for-six-years-for-teaching-tibetan-language
It’s rarely about the actual letter of the law and more about the vague wording and standards that allow it to be enforced in a bigoted way.
You are misunderstand it (and the BBC article is also very unclear about it). Learning Mandarin was already mandatory, it’s now about making Mandarin the default.
I think it varies in parts of Xinjiang, but in at least part of it, along with most of the rest of China, most school instruction is in Mandarin.
Everyone still speaks their native languages, but they speak mando to chinese from other places. The kids know a few english phrases too for some reason.