Inner Mongolia doubles down on China’s plan to teach key subjects in Mandarin despite protests

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Mongolians hold placards protest in Ulan Bator the capital of Mongolia, against neighbouring China’s plan to teach core subjects in Mandarin not Mongolian in schools in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 6:02pm, 3 Sep 2020Updated: 9:44pm, 25 Nov 2020

Corrected [10:45pm, 3 Sep, 2020]

[10:45pm, 3 Sep, 2020]
This story has been changed to correct population figures.

The regional government of Inner Mongolia in northern China vowed to double down on the new policy to teach key school subjects in Mandarin as police launched a massive hunt for protesters who took to the streets to demand preservation of their ethnic language.

Bu Xiaolin, chairwoman of the autonomous region, told a video conference on Tuesday the new policy was an “important political mission” and ordered cadres to work meticulously to ensure its smooth implementation to show their loyalty to President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party leadership.

The regional government announced last week that primary and secondary schools that originally taught in the Mongolian language would shift to Mandarin to teach three core subjects: literature, ethics and history.

It has been a long-standing policy that parents are allowed to choose whether to send their children to a school teaching Mandarin or Mongolian languages.

Parents confront authorities outside a school in Tongliao in Inner Mongolia last month over a new bilingual education policy that they say is endangering the Mongolian language. Photo: AP

The new policy, however, sparked fears that the Mongolian language would gradually be extinguished and give way to Mandarin.

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