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According to East Turkestan Information Center, the Chinese government
promulgated a special instruction to all higher education institutions
in Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region which requests from "minority"
professors to be able to deliver lectures in Chinese language
beginning next academic semester.
The instruction says that "minority" professors who can not deliver
lectures in Chinese must be dismissed from their positions, moved to
other non-teaching positions, or retire.
The instruction caused confusion among many "minority" professors and
students who do not know what is going to happen next.
Apparently, this action is not limited to higher education
institutions only, and it is going to be put forward in some secondary
Uighur schools as well. According to the report, the Chinese
government plans by the year 2010 to transfer all Uighur elementary
schools in Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region into schools where
science classes will be lectured in Chinese. A few experimental groups
have been established in some Uighur schools to see possible results
of such action.
For example, last year a special experimental group of Uighur students
was set up in the city of Kashgar's secondary school #1, in which
science classes were lectured in Chinese. Chinese teachers were
invited from inner regions of China to replace some Uighur teachers
since these "Uighur teachers do not speak Chinese". Although some of
the Chinese teachers spoke only their own Chinese dialects and could
not speak the Beijing dialect, most of the Uighur students could not
understand them; but, this was of a little concern by the Chinese
teachers.
Besides the Chinese authorities plan to adopt educational plans for
Uighur schools similar to those in Chinese schools and to replace
educational materials in Uighur by those written in Chinese.
As a part of the experiment, last year the Chinese authorities opened
"Xinjiang groups" at some schools in inner Chinese provinces and put
Uighur students in those groups.
The new "minority" education measures by the Chinese authorities
explicitly violate the articles on "minorities" of the Constitution of
PRC and the Law on a National Territorial Autonomy. Under the
pretext of improving the education of "minorities", the measures will
further diminish the role of the Uighur language in the
Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. Moreover, they threaten the future
of thousands of Uighur teachers and professors and will affect
millions of Uighur children and youths. |
