Abstract
A preferential education policy specifically targeted at the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) is widely considered to be a great success after twenty years of implementation. This policy established what has come to be known as the neidi Xizang ban (inland Tibetan schools and classes; Postiglione et al. 2004). This chapter focuses on the part of that policy that sends the top graduates of Tibet’s primary schools to boarding schools in China’s urban areas for study of up to seven years.1 Our aim is to review the main aspects of the policy and present preliminary data about student perspectives on their experience at neidi schools. In our conclusions, we point out the largely positive benefits of neidi schools as well as the concerns of both graduates and the state. The schools and their curricula, in preparing young Tibetans for careers as cadres in the TAR, inculcate in students a Chinese national identity, without sacrificing the students’ sense of themselves as Tibetans.
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© 2009 Minglang Zhou and Ann Maxwell Hill
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Postiglione, G.A., Jiao, B., Tsering, N. (2009). Tibetan Student Perspectives on Neidi Schools. In: Zhou, M., Hill, A.M. (eds) Affirmative Action in China and the U.S.. International and Development Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100923_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100923_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-61334-8
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