China closes three Tibetan schools in Golog, fuelling assimilation fears

Reports published on 19 and 20 October 2026 say Chinese authorities forcibly closed at least three private Tibetan schools in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Amdo in August and September, shifting pupils into Mandarin-medium institutions (TCHRD; Tibet Rights Collective; ANI, via Lokmat Times; Asian Lite).

TCHRD’s 19 October report names all three schools in Machen County: the Golog Tadrak Orphan School, the Ra-Gya Jigme Gyaltsen Grassland Girls’ School and a crowdfunded village school in Jasag. A Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) report says hundreds of children have been sent to government boarding schools, while phone and internet surveillance makes independent verification difficult.

The Tabo Village orphan school, founded in 2005 with backing from the late Dr Tawu Lobsang Palden and his wife, educated and sheltered over 300 orphaned or disadvantaged children before its 2 September closure. The Ra-Gya girls’ school, founded on 15 October 2005 and closed on 27 August, taught around 800 girls from nomadic families. The Jasag school was closed in late August after officials ordered it to teach only Mandarin — the “national common language” — instead of Tibetan.

The closures cap years of pressure: Tibetan textbooks were replaced with Mandarin versions from 2020, new enrolment was suspended in 2021, and the last graduation was in June 2026 (Tibet Post). The CTA calls the closures violations of educational, linguistic and cultural rights; UN experts warned in 2023 that China’s boarding-school system could amount to “forced assimilation”. Chinese authorities have not commented in these reports.