Tibetan education enjoys a history of more than
1,000 years, beginning with the creation of a Tibetan
written script during the Tubo Kingdom. Under the Feudal
Serfdom characteristic of the temporal and religious
administration, however, Tibetan society was underdeveloped.
Naturally, Tibetan educational progress was severely
impeded. In 1951, when Tibet was peacefully liberated, its
education level compared extremely unfavorably with world
progress and even lagged far behind China's hinterland.
Before its peaceful liberation in 1951, Tibet
had no regular schools in the modern sense. Monastic
education was the chief form of education. In major cities
towns, there were a few small, low-level schools to train
future lay and monk officials. Statistics show that, in
addition to monastic education, there were about 20 schools
run by local governments, and nearly 100 private schools,
with a total enrollment of less than 1000
students.
The right of education in old Tibet
was in the hands of serf owners. The education contained
strong class nature and religious flavor. The schools, aimed
at nurturing lay and monk officials for every field of
Tibetan life, enrolled pupils mainly from monks and the
children of the aristocracy and government officials. The
subjects taught ranged from the morality of the noble class
to the knowledge and techniques required to be a ruler. They
included Tibetan language, calligraphy, document
composition, calculation. Sanskrit language and religious
etiquette. There were no courses in natural sciences, such
as mathematics, physics and chemistry. The schools boasted
neither qualified teachers nor unified teaching materials
and proper classrooms. Instead, monks served as teachers,
scriptures were used as teaching materials, and sutra halls
and dorms served as classroom. There was no special
management organ, and no plan for regular terms. Students
were taught mainly to read and write. Even this kind of
education was not available to the ordinary Tibetan people.
The government stipulated, for example, that children of
blacksmiths and butchers were not anowed to school; and
children from the families of common people, who were lucky
enough to have the opportunity to attend school, could not
sit with aristocratic students, And after graduation they
could not take a job, but went back home. Therefore, less
than 2 percent of school-age children attended school and
the illiteracy rate amounted to 95 percent on the eve of
Tibet's peaceful liberation in l95l.
In a
nutshell, Tibetan education under feudal serfdom was
backward and declining, as was also the case in politics,
economics and social development. Modern education did not
exist. The following is a brief introduction to education in
old Tibet.
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