China’s newly enacted Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress provides a legal basis for policies that place Mandarin-language education and a state-defined Chinese national identity at the centre of schooling, raising renewed concerns over the future of Tibetan-language and cultural education.
The law, adopted by China’s National People’s Congress on 12 March and effective from 1 July 2026, requires schools and other educational institutions to use the national common language and script as the basic language of education and teaching. It also requires schools to incorporate the cultivation of a “sense of community of the Chinese nation” throughout the educational process and to use nationally unified textbooks.
The provisions place education at the centre of a broader state campaign to promote a unified Chinese national identity among Tibetans and other ethnic minorities.
Article 15 of the new law requires schools to use the national common language and script as the basic language of education and teaching. It also calls for preschool children to learn the national common language and for students completing compulsory education to have a basic command of it.
Article 16 requires schools and educational institutions to incorporate the cultivation of the “sense of community of the Chinese nation” throughout the educational process, including classroom teaching, social practice, themed education and online education. It also requires the use of nationally unified textbooks and directs education authorities to incorporate these requirements into textbook development and review. The law further provides for the development of a series of textbooks or readers concerning the “Chinese national community.”
The law therefore goes beyond promoting Mandarin proficiency. It places language, curriculum and national-identity education within a single legal framework. In Tibet, authorities have begun publicising educational measures that correspond closely with these provisions.
At a press conference held by the Information Office of the People’s Government of Tibet Autonomous Region on 12 August, Li Ji, deputy director of the TAR Education Department, said authorities would deepen implementation of the “Love China” Planting Seeds campaign. According to the TAR authorities, courses on ethnic unity and progress would be offered in primary, secondary and higher schools, as well as kindergartens, throughout the region.
Li also called for activities involving “interaction, exchange and integration” among teachers and students of different ethnic groups, stronger education on a shared national identity, promotion of the “national common language and script,” the compilation of new textbooks, and deeper incorporation of ideological and political education into schools.
New teaching materials for children
According to information shared by the TAR authorities at the 12 August press conference, new teaching materials concerning the Chinese national community are being developed across different stages of education, from kindergarten to university.
The materials include The Chinese Nation Is One Family for kindergartens, The Chinese Nation as One Big Family for primary schools, Great Unity of the Chinese Nation for secondary schools, and Introduction to the Community of the Chinese Nation for universities.
The emphasis on national identity from early childhood is significant. By incorporating these themes into education from kindergarten onwards, authorities are placing the state’s understanding of Chinese national identity within the formal education of Tibetan children from an increasingly early age.
Tibetan-language textbooks revised
The implementation of the new law is taking place alongside reports of changes to Tibetan-language education. On 15 July, two weeks after the law came into force, a source close to TCHRD living inside Tibet shared that Chinese authorities were producing new Tibetan-language textbooks for schools across Tsongon, Sichuan and Gansu provinces. According to the source, traditional Tibetan literary and cultural works were being removed from the revised textbooks.
The source identified several works removed from Tibetan textbooks, including The Mirror of Poetry (སྙན་ངག་མེ་ལོང་), The Treatises of Water and Woods (ཆུ་ཤིང་བསྟན་བཅོས།) by Gungthang Kunchok Tenpai Dronmey, and Advice of an Experienced Old Man (ཉམས་མྱོང་རྒན་པོའི་འབེལ་གཏམ་), along with other traditional Tibetan literary and cultural materials.
The source said the new textbooks contained little or no Tibetan cultural content and expressed concern that Tibetan children would have limited exposure to their own literary and cultural heritage.
Information obtained by TCHRD through the same source further indicates that the revised Tibetan-language textbook was produced in 2026 and is already being taught in schools, while the old textbook has been discontinued. Children are required to attend kindergarten as a condition for entering elementary school. Once enrolled, they are taught primarily in Mandarin, resulting in reduced opportunities to use Tibetan at home. The source described cases in which children from Tibetan-speaking families increasingly lose the ability to speak Tibetan despite having Tibetan parents.
The combination of early Mandarin-language instruction, the diminished role of Tibetan in education, and changes to Tibetan-language teaching materials could accelerate the displacement of Tibetan from formal education and weaken the transmission of Tibetan language and cultural knowledge to younger generations.
Wider campaign to implement the law in Tibet
The education measures announced on 12 August form part of a broader campaign to implement the new ethnic unity law across Tibet. The visit of senior Chinese Communist Party official Wang Huning to Tibet Autonomous Region last month called for full implementation of the new law and for publicity and education campaigns to forge a unified national identity. He also called for further efforts to promote the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism.
A separate symposium was held in Lhasa on 14 August for representatives of non-Communist Party individuals to study, publicise and implement the new law. At the symposium, Chinese government-appointed Gyaltsen Norbu described ethnic unity as the “foundation of national unity, the cornerstone of social harmony, and the source of development and progress.”
Gyaltsen Norbu described the law as China’s first foundational and comprehensive law specifically dedicated to promoting ethnic solidarity and progress. He said it provides a legal and institutional framework for strengthening the “sense of community for the Chinese nation” and consolidating ethnic unity.
The TAR authorities said that since March 2026, government offices and departments across the region had organised 1,882 activities publicising the new law, reaching more than 258,000 people.
The developments indicate that education is one of the principal mechanisms through which the new legal framework is being implemented in Tibet, while the broader campaign seeks to institutionalise a state-defined conception of Chinese national identity across Tibetan society.
The concern for Tibetans is that the combined effect of these policies could further restrict the space for Tibetan language, literature and cultural knowledge within formal education, while increasing pressure on Tibetan children to adopt a state-defined Chinese national identity.
“The Chinese authorities must ensure that Tibetan children have meaningful access to education about their own language, history, literature and culture, and that Tibetan parents and communities are allowed to participate meaningfully in decisions concerning the language and cultural content of their children’s education,” said Dawa Tashi, researcher at TCHRD.
