Here is a guide to education in China as it stands today.

We all know that both the government and economic approaches of China are based on the communist way of thinking. While foreign to most Westerners (in fact, to most everyone else in the world), the communist way of life has been the basis for much of China’s current ways of living. While this type of government definitely affects how the population of China lives, it also affects some other important aspects of the country. One way that this can be seen is in the education of people in China.

The education approach in China might be seen by some (especially those in the United States and Europe) as being short. China only requires that each child has nine years of formal education – this is far less than the amount of schooling that is seen in other countries, such as the 13 years in the US and 14 years in Canada. The types of schooling offered in China are broken into three areas: basic education, higher education and adult education. Basic education starts with preschool or kindergarten, which lasts longer than it does in the US, with children entering this schooling program at around age three, and staying in preschool until the age of six. At age six, children enter primary education (elementary school). After completing elementary school, kids are then put into one of two types of secondary education: either academic (preparing the students for higher education) or vocational secondary education which prepares the students for work.

China does also offer higher education. Students who attend college have the choice of going to a short-cycle school (two to three years, equivalent to an associates’ degree), or a regular college which lasts three to four years and can end in a bachelor’s degree. Masters and PhD programs are also available. Finally, adult education (which also falls partially under higher education) offers programs such as Peasants’ Primary Schools, Workers’ Primary Schools and literacy training. These types of adult education are aimed at adults that may not have gone through any formal schooling in their childhood – and they also include places such as correspondence colleges and specialized schools for different industries and jobs.

The education platform in China is well organized, and while not exactly like schools found in the US, definitely rivals the schooling found in the rest of the (non-communist) world. Both adults and children are able to educate themselves to further their careers and working life.

Tibet is a region on the northern borders of India and for long acted as a buffer between India and China. Tibet has its own distinctive culture that is quite different from that of China. But it is also a fact of History that China has always coveted Tibet.

At the turn of the last century Tibet was a closed society. But Colonel Younghusband on the orders of Lord Curzon ordered an invasion of Tibet in 1903-04. The Tibetans were defeated and accepted a resident at Lhasa, the capital. But again the suzerainty of Tibet was recognized. The British shrewd as ever also got the Tibetans, Chinese and themselves into a pact that delineated the border with Tibet and India in the Shimla pact of 1914.

Tibet had degree of independence during the period between the two wars. However the end of the Second World War brought about a sea change in the political equation. India was granted independence by the British.Nehru the Indian Prim Minister, who had all his life spent agitating against the British rule did not understand the game of power politics. He showed naivity and by default accepted Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, though he talked of autonomy for the mountain state.

The Chinese invaded Tibet and soon entered Lhasa and all the while Nehru kept twiddling his thumbs. The Communists now established a stranglehold over Tibet and began to slowly dismantle their centuries old culture and religion. There was an uprising by the Tibetans which was ruthlessly crushed by China. The Dalia Lama the temporal and spiritual head of Tibet escaped to India and was granted political asylum

But again the Indian government could not do anything as China enforced communist rule over Tibet. Monasteries were razed and the Tibetan Buddhist nuns were forcibly married to Chinese men. The Lamas were hounded and Tibet was put under the strictest of laws. It was a dark age.

In this period the Indian Army suffered a devastating defeat to China and vast tracts of land were lost in Ladakh. The Chinese were thus able to consolidate their grip over Tibet. The Chinese even kidnapped young Tibetan girls and took them to China and Chinese from China were encouraged to settle in Tibet, so as to change the demographic character of the state.

As things stand the world and India can only sit and watch as the Chinese consolidate their grip over the Tibetan people. What is the solution? There appears to be none as the Chinese government on one pretext or another does not want to negotiate with the Dalai Lama. India and the USA are also weak as far as Tibet is concerned. Tibetan culture is totally suppressed and a curtain is drawn all over Tibet. Thus the road ahead is bleak and short of a complete collapse of communism in China, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the Tibetans.