"Bilingual" Policy Reduces Use of Ethnic Minority Languages in Xinjiang Preschools

May 5, 2008

A new program in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) strengthens government measures to promote Mandarin Chinese at the preschool level via educational instruction that the government describes as "bilingual" but that places primacy on Mandarin at the expense of ethnic minority languages. According to a February 28 article from the Urumqi Evening News (via Tianshan Net), authorities in the XUAR implemented a program in February to send student-teachers from the Xinjiang Preschool Teacher's College to preschools in Kashgar prefecture to supplement the area's shortage of bilingual teaching staff.

A new program in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) strengthens government measures to promote Mandarin Chinese at the preschool level via educational instruction that the government describes as "bilingual" but that places primacy on Mandarin at the expense of ethnic minority languages. According to a February 28 article from the Urumqi Evening News (via Tianshan Net), authorities in the XUAR implemented a program in February to send student-teachers from the Xinjiang Preschool Teacher's College to preschools in Kashgar prefecture to supplement the area's shortage of bilingual teaching staff. Students who volunteer for the one-semester program receive various benefits, including a monthly subsidy for living expenses and preferential treatment once they enter the job market. Based on the results from this group of student-teachers, authorities will expand the scope of the program, the article reported.

The program follows earlier news on enlarging the scope of bilingual preschool education. In late 2005, the XUAR government stressed the importance of strengthening bilingual preschool education and announced plans to comprehensively implement bilingual education at the preschool level the following year. In 2006, it announced it would allocate 430 million yuan (US$59.76 million) over five years to support bilingual preschool programs in seven prefectures, to reach a target rate of 85 percent of rural ethnic minority children enrolled in two years of bilingual preschool education by 2010, according to an October 2006 article from the Xinjiang Economic News (via Tianshan Net). The following year, the XUAR Department of Finance allotted 70.39 million yuan (US$9.78 million) to cover subsidies for both students and teachers in bilingual preschool programs, according to a November 2007 report from Xinjiang Daily. According to the Urumqi Evening News article, as of 2007, the XUAR had 2,982 bilingual preschool classes encompassing around 93,000 children and 1,835 staff members. The previous year, the Xinjiang Economic News article reported that the XUAR would support over 1,300 bilingual preschool classes involving 51,900 students and 1,296 teachers for that academic year.

Available information on the bilingual programs in XUAR schools indicates that many programs deemed "bilingual" have focused on instruction primarily in Mandarin Chinese, in some cases relegating instruction in ethnic minority languages solely to language arts classes. In addition, at least one predominantly ethnic minority city has cast its language policy as instruction exclusively in Mandarin Chinese, rather than use the "bilingual" label. The education for students enrolled at the Xinjiang Preschool Teacher's College, the XUAR's training base for bilingual preschool certification and source of student-teachers for the February program, also indicates the shift to Mandarin at higher levels of education. Although one description of the college, available on the XUAR Personnel Department Web site (undated), describes the institution as a combined ethnic minority-Han school that teaches in Mandarin, Uighur, and Kazakh, 2007 recruitment materials for the school, posted on the Xinjiang Education Department Web site (undated), stated that the language of instruction for all subject areas, including bilingual education classes, would be in Mandarin Chinese.

Despite evidence of this focus on Mandarin in XUAR schools, as reported in sources including a 2006 Xinjiang Daily article (via Tianshan Net), XUAR Chair Nur Bekri stated in a March 5, 2008, Xinjiang Metropolitan News article (via Xinhua) that bilingual education in the region equally values ethnic minority languages and Mandarin. Nur Bekri described criticisms of bilingual education as an attack from the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism operating outside China.

XUAR language policies violate Chinese laws that protect and promote the use of ethnic minority languages, which form part of broader legal guarantees to protect ethnic minority rights and allow autonomy in ethnic minority regions. For example, Article 4 of the Chinese Constitution and Article 10 of the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law (REAL) guarantee that ethnic minorities have the freedom to use and develop their own languages. Article 121 of the Constitution and Article 21 of the REAL state that government agencies in ethnic autonomous regions adopt the languages in common use in the region. The REAL adds that "where several commonly used languages are used for the performance of such functions, the language of the nationality exercising regional autonomy may be used as the main language." In the specific area of education, Article 37 of the REAL stipulates that "[s]chools (classes) and other educational organizations recruiting mostly ethnic minority students should, whenever possible, use textbooks in their own languages and use these languages as the media of instruction." Despite these various legal provisions to protect ethnic minority languages and promote their use as lingua franca of the region, authorities have developed a linguistic environment in the XUAR that privileges Mandarin and makes knowledge of it a functional requisite in various public spheres, including but not limited to the XUAR education system. As a result of current policy, opportunities for educational, professional, and economic advancement in the XUAR increasingly have become contingent on knowledge of Mandarin. While bilingual education programs that diminish the use of ethnic minority languages respond to this need for Mandarin skills, XUAR officials do not acknowledge that the need stems from official failures to protect ethnic minority rights and implement autonomy in ethnic minority regions as provided for in Chinese law.

For more information on conditions in the XUAR, see Section II--Ethnic Minority Rights, subsection on Rights Abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in the 2007 CECC Annual Report (via the Government Printing Office Web site).