China is placing army veterans as so-called “on-campus instructors” in schools across Tibet to impart military and political training to Tibetan children as young as 6, sources inside Tibet say, confirming state-run media reports about the new system.
The move is a bid to instill loyalty to the Chinese government from a young age -– an initiative that experts say highlight an escalation in Beijing’s assimilation policies aimed at erasing Tibetan identity.
State-run TV segments show Tibetan students marching in fatigues, raising the red Chinese flag and standing in formation while responding to commands from the instructors.
Other footage shows children diving under their desks for air raid drills and evacuating down stairs with notebooks held over their heads for protection against falling objects.
Military personnel are being deployed to schools in Lhasa, Chamdo, and Nagchu in the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, Ngaba and Kyungchu counties in Sichuan province, Sangchu county in Gansu province as well as other regions in Qinghai province, the sources told RFA Tibetan.
There, they are tasked with providing “patriotic education” and preparing Tibetan children for future military service, the sources said.
Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force over 70 years ago. Ever since, Chinese authorities have maintained a tight grip on the region, restricting the Tibetan people’s peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity and use of the Tibetan language.
“It’s no longer just about China swapping out Tibetan language in textbooks for Mandarin, the first source told Radio Free Asia, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“Now, they are sending military personnel and Chinese Communist Party cadres to schools across Tibet to provide ideological education to thoroughly change Tibetan children’s values, way of thinking, and overall mannerisms in order to build their loyalty to the party,” he said.
Instilling ‘correct values’ in children
In Nagchu, for example, 13 retired Han Chinese army veterans were installed as “on-campus instructors” at seven different schools, ranging from primary to middle school, to help instill “correct values” in children, local state-run media reported.
At least such two video reports showed that during such training periods, instructors blew whistles in the early mornings to wake up the children and instill army style culture in schools. TV footage also showed instructors dressed in fatigues inspecting bunk beds to see if the beds are made properly.
The new system seeks to “let national defense education take root from childhood” and to ready Tibetan children for future military service, in what authorities said creates a “new win-win situation for veterans’ services and youth ideological and political education,” state-run media reports said.
“Usually, the Chinese Ministry of Education creates a list of primary and secondary national defense education demonstration schools,” Anushka Saxena, a research analyst at Bengaluru, India-based Takshashila Institution, told Radio Free Asia.
“Such schools are those where the PLA feels it needs to inculcate a sense of unity” with the Communist Party’s cause, she said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army.
“Hence, schools in Tibet become an important target, given the need to assimilate and have younger generations feel a sense of loyalty to the country and the military,” she said.
Goal: Sinicization
Experts said the proliferation of uniformed military personnel in various local Tibetan primary and middle schools is a direct result of the recently amended National Defense Education Law, which was passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislature, and came into effect in September 2024.
Under the amendments, branches of the People’s Liberation Army will be stationed in colleges, universities and high schools across the country to boost a nationwide program of approved military education and physical training to prepare young people for recruitment, state news agency Xinhua reported at the time.
“Together with other coercive means… this law is now being abused as an auxiliary tool to achieve the CCP’s – yet still elusive – goal of full Sinicization of Tibetans, by both militarizing and brainwashing the generation of young Tibetan who are coming of age in the current decade,” said Frank Lehberger, a Germany-based Sinologist and senior research fellow at Indian think tank Usanas Foundation, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
China has long had a culture of military training in schools and universities, with Tibetan school children aged 8-16 forced to attend military training programs during vacation and Tibetan university students made to participate in military drills and training exercises.
But the “on-campus instructor” system is a first, experts say.
Chinese authorities chose Sernye district in Nagchu as the first pilot area in Tibet to implement the system, which they refer to as “…the innovative practice of integrating veterans’ management with school education.”
‘Reshaping children’s values and thought processes’
This, experts say, is in line with goals outlined in China’s government work report for 2025, in which Premier Li Qiang said the government will draw up and implement a three-year action plan to strengthen education by adopting “integrated reforms and new approaches” in the “political education curriculum at all levels, from elementary school to university.”
“These efforts at reshaping Tibetan children’s values and thought processes go beyond the classroom,” a second source from Tibet told RFA.
“These party cadres with extensive military experience enter students’ dormitories even after school hours to enforce Han Chinese ideologies and teach their social norms and conducts,” he said. “This is aimed at deconstructing Tibetan children’s existing thought patterns and cultural practices, which they have learned from their parents and traditions.”
In Ngaba and Dzoge county in Sichuan province, for example, where Chinese authorities recently closed two monastic schools and forced young monks from these schools into state-administered boarding schools, sources say there is a greater emphasis on providing political education to Tibetan children.
The closure of the two schools in July 2024 affected about 1600 students who were then forced to enrol in state-run boarding schools.
“I’ve received essays written anonymously by Tibetan teachers from inside Tibet who have expressed their frustration at seeing the complete changes in school curriculum with heavy propaganda messages. This includes showing soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army in a heroic light,” said Tsewang Dorji, Research Fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute.
The “on-campus instructors” in Tibetan schools serve multiple roles, including as national defense education counselors, behavioral norms instructors, and ideological and political lecturers, local Chinese state media reported.
Some of the training they provide and activities they lead in the schools, include Chinese flag-raising march, singing of military songs before meals, and provision of political and ideological education, with an emphasis on stories that glorify the ‘Chinese nation’ and service to it, reports said.
“The PLA finds relevance in cultivating soldiers from Tibet given Tibetan’s natural and habitual adjustment with climates of high altitude. When it comes to cultivating professionals capable of conducting mountain warfare against adversaries like India, Tibetans can be an important asset for the PLA,” Saxena said.
Chinese state media also celebrated the success of the pilot project in Nagchu, saying more than 300 Tibetan students have applied to be “future military service volunteers.”
Translated by Tenzin Norzom. Edited by Tenzin Pema and Malcolm Foster.
