China Shows Off Tibetan Boarding School; Forced Assimilation

The Shangri-La Key Boarding School is an example of bilingual education, Chinese-style. Tibetan activists have a different term for it: forced assimilation. The issue is getting official attention this year, with U.N. human rights experts and representatives from the U.S. and a handful of other Western governments condemning the system. China has shuttered village schools across Tibet and replaced them with centralized boarding schools over the last dozen years. Many students come from remote farming villages and live at the schools. The practice is not limited to the region but appears to be much more widespread in Tibetan areas.