Xinjiang education reform and the eradication of Uyghur-language books
October 02, 2019At the end of the school year there would be a major Chinese test. If she did not pass it, she would not be allowed to go on to high school. Instead, she would be sent to a vocational school where she would be trained in Chinese and political ideology before being sent to work in a factory. Essentially, her education would end if she didn’t pass the test. She felt as though her entire life hung in the balance. For as long as she could remember, she had dreamed of becoming a doctor. It was a lot of pressure for a 15-year-old.
Beginning on September 1, 2017, primary schools across the region began to change their “bilingual” curriculum to a Chinese-only “mode 2” program in anticipation of these Chinese-language exams.
In another 2019 video chat with his father, Kaiser found out that his collection of Uyghur literature books . . . had been confiscated by the police, despite the fact that all of them had previously been approved. His father told him that there were no Uyghur-language books left in their village.