China orders Mongolian middle schools to switch to Mandarin in September

Officials in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia are ordering all schools to switch to Mandarin-medium teaching and slash Mongolian language classes by September, in what a group of exiles called “genocide.” ongoing culture.

The regional education office ordered schools at all levels to implement “teaching in our national language Mandarin” and ensure that high school students are proficient in the language, even if they speak Mongolian at home, in a continuation of a policy that prompted mass protests across the region in August 2020.

The schools should “build Chinese national consciousness and community, and deepen education in national unity,” regional officials said at a meeting in late March.

Rights activists have warned that “national unity” programs have led to forced intermarriage between the majority Han Chinese and Uyghurs and Tibetans, as well as other attempts to erase ethnic identity and autonomy.

covert recording

Meanwhile, the New York-based South Mongolia Center for Information and Human Rights released an audio recording in which school officials tell parents at Hohhot No. 30 High School that they must “firmly inculcate a common Chinese national identity” among the six million ethnic people in the region. mongols.

“New details leaked from an undercover recording confirm… a total ban on Mongolian language teaching throughout the (region) will be fully effective from September 1, 2023,” the group said in a report on its website. , citing a 52-minute video. Audio recording of a recent parent-teacher conference.

“Under a central government directive, all Mongolian schools in the region will use Mandarin as the language of instruction from September 1 this year,” the official is heard saying, adding that the policy will be implemented in the No 30 Baccalaureate from May 1.

All ethnic Mongolian students will soon be required to take university entrance exams in Chinese, instead of Mongolian, starting in 2025.

“Chinese policy of total elimination of the Mongolian language in (Inner) Mongolia has been well-planned and systematic,” the South Mongolia Center for Information and Human Rights said, adding that the National People’s Congress had ruled that education in minority languages it was “unconstitutional”. ” in the wake of the 2020 protests.

The ruling replaced a clause in Article 4 of the constitution, which once stated: “All ethnic groups have the freedom and rights to use and develop their own spoken and written languages ​​and to preserve or reform their own usages and customs.” paved the way for more purges of any historical or cultural material in the classrooms linked to traditional Mongolian culture.

Parents and teachers have also been explicitly prohibited from organizing Mongolian-medium teaching on the side, the group said.

Participate in cultural genocide

The group’s director, Enghebatu Togochog, recently testified before the Congressional Executive Commission on China that teachers could be punished just for informing students of any learning opportunities outside of school.

“From what is happening to the Uyghurs and what is happening to the Mongols and Tibetans, it is clear that the Chinese authorities are engaging in different forms of genocidal campaigns on multiple fronts,” he said.

“(The) goal is the same: to wipe out the language, culture and identity of these three peoples and (turn them into a) ‘Chinese’ nationality,” he said.

Japan-based ethnic Mongolian scholar Khubis said that No. 30 High School in Hohhot was originally set up to provide Mongolian middle-level education to ethnic Mongolian students.

“Now the whole school will start teaching in standard Mandarin,” he said. “The school also stated (in the audio clip) that Mandarin will be used as a medium of instruction throughout the region starting September 1.”

“This will have a particularly big impact on the Mongols,” he said.

Politics born of ‘Han chauvinism’

Germany-based activist Xi Haiming said the policy is too aggressive.

“Xi Jinping is using Mandarin, meaning Chinese, to sinicize the Mongols, as well as the Tibetans and Uyghurs,” he told Radio Free Asia.

“This is a barbaric policy that arises from han chauvinismthat is, Chinese nationalism,” Xi said, using a term used to refer to racist and colonialist policies from Beijing

The government announced in 2021 that extend compulsory Mandarin teaching to preschool-age children across the country, displacing minority languages ​​like Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur, as well as regional Chinese languages ​​like Sichuanese or Cantonese, as the medium of instruction for children of all ages across the country.

The measure was intended to “allow preschool children from ethnic minorities and rural areas to gradually acquire the ability to communicate at a basic level in Mandarin and lay the foundation for the phase of compulsory education,” the directive said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.