Tibetan a must for region’s non-native civil servants
Print Edition
MASTERY of the Tibetan language will become a requirement for non-native civil servants in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.
All seven prefecture-level cities in Tibet have started organizing Tibetan language training, the regional bureau of compilation and translation said yesterday.
Qoizha, deputy director of the bureau, said they have handed out 40,000 books on basic Tibetan language for daily conversation.
During a conference on ethnic work in September last year, President Xi Jinping said that ethnic minority officials should learn Mandarin and their Han counterparts should learn ethnic languages. The language skill should become a requirement, he said.
“One cannot serve the local people well if one cannot speak the local language,” Xi said.
Tibet has adopted a bilingual policy since the regional legislature passed a law in 1987 stipulating both Tibetan and Mandarin as official languages in the region.
Qoizha said that more than 90 percent of Tibet’s population of 3 million is of Tibetan ethnicity. Breaking the language barrier can help non-natives better interact with local communities.
In the past 20 years, close to 6,000 civil servants and technical professionals from various Chinese provinces and municipalities had been sent to help develop the southwestern autonomous region of Tibet, each usually staying in the region for three years.
According to Wang Fengchao, deputy head of the organization department of the Communist Party’s Tibet autonomous regional committee, seven groups from 18 provincial regions had been sent to 74 counties and cities in the southwest region since an aid program began in 1994.
They have worked in sectors such as the economy, technology, education, and medical science.
Zhao Lei, an official working in Zantang Township of Shannan Prefecture, said simple conversation in the local tongue can foster better relationships.
He said he was hoping to learn Tibetan so he won’t have to depend on Tibetan colleagues for interpretation.
Cering Banjor, Party chief of the No. 4 Chadang Village in Nagqu Prefecture, said the village committee had helped Han officials find language partners for the required language training.
Most of them have been able to use Tibetan for simple conversations.
Qoizha said that in addition to Tibetan-language reading materials, the regional government plans to produce bilingual language-learning TV programs to help civil servants learn the language.
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