In July 2024, Jigme Gyaltsen Ethnic Vocational High School, which had operated independently for 30 years, announced its closure. Known as the best Tibetan-language educational institution and a private welfare school in the greater Tibetan region, it has now come to an end. The author of this article once served as an IT technician at the school, handling numerous digital archives and witnessing the establishment, struggles, development, and eventual forced closure of this institution on this land. Now living overseas, the author learned of the school’s shutdown. However, due to censorship, former colleagues and Tibetan friends could not convey their sorrow. The author took up the pen to write this detailed recollection.
-by gingerduan.substack.com, 26 November 2024
The original manuscript was published in Chinese on Mangmang: 一所独立藏语民族学校的坚守与落幕——吉美坚赞民族职业学校的30年
On July 14, 2024, in Golog Prefecture, Qinghai Province, the esteemed monk of Ragya Monastery and renowned educator Jigme Gyaltsen announced via a bilingual Tibetan-Chinese post on WeChat that the independently operated Jigme Gyaltsen Ethnic Vocational High School, which he founded, would be closing down after 30 years. The school had long offered free admission to students from farming and herding communities across the Tibetan regions of five provinces. It was regarded as one of the finest Tibetan-language educational institutions in the Greater Tibetan Area. This legendary private welfare school on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has thus come to an end. The announcement emphasized that the closure was not due to the will of any individual or organization. Still, it was based on the national standards for vocational schools and relevant directives from the Qinghai Provincial Committee.
Some have commented that “black snow” has fallen over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, extinguishing a beacon for the Tibetan people.
Ragya Town, a small settlement along the Yellow River in Golog Prefecture, Qinghai Province, is home to this iconic institution. Here, when locals say “the school,” everyone knows it refers to this one—it feels like there is only one school in Ragya. Between Ragya Town and the school lies the mountain “Ani Qungong,” meaning “Great Roc Spreading Its Wings,” at the foot of the mountain stands Ragya Monastery, the first monastery on the Yellow River. I will use “Ragya School” in the following text to refer to Jigme Gyaltsen Ethic Vocational High School.
From 2018 to 2019, I briefly worked as a network technician at this school. While there, I became deeply immersed in its environment and worked closely with many digital archives. I witnessed Ragya School’s founding, struggles, development, and eventual forced closure on this land through this. I witnessed its rise and fall, its joys and sorrows.
This school was called the “Harvard of the Tibetan people,” its forced closure carries profound significance for the entire Tibetan region. Now, living overseas, I learned of the school’s shutdown. I saw my Tibetan friends on social media drowning in tears, yet unable to express their grief in their native language due to censorship on social media like WeChat.
I deeply feel a connection between myself and this distant school, and the sorrowful cries from afar resonate with me. Since I am overseas, I decided to write it all down.
01 A Fusion of Tradition and Modernity: An Educational Experiment
Jigme Gyaltsen (hereafter referred to as “the Principal”) was a monk from Golog who founded Ragya School in 1994. It was the first private welfare school in Qinghai Province and a pioneering educational reform in Tibetan regions at the time.
Traditional Tibetan society primarily relied on monastic education. For both men and women, becoming a monk or nun and going to a monastery was often the only way to receive an education. Monasteries had a comprehensive education system comparable to modern primary and secondary schools, with various degrees and certifications. For example, the Geshe degree is akin to a doctorate in Tibetan Buddhism. Families would willingly support their children’s monastic studies by providing food, clothing, and pocket money. In Tibet, monasteries functioned as more than just schools; they also served as welfare organizations, banks, hospitals, and academic institutions.
The Principal, who had received higher education, graduated from the Advanced Buddhist Institute founded by the Panchen Lama in Beijing before deciding to return to his hometown. At that time, Amdo Tibet was underdeveloped and lacked educational resources. Traditional monks were unfamiliar with modern knowledge and skills such as law, Mandarin, or computer science and had no place to learn them. Meanwhile, Tibetan children from nomadic families, due to their traditional pastoral lifestyle, had limited access to education. For example, in 2020, a Tibetan herdsman named Tenzing Tsondu(DingZhen) became an internet sensation in China because of his handsome appearance. After achieving fame as a livestreamer with millions of fans, he was revealed to be illiterate in Chinese. This wasn’t unusual in traditional Tibetan society, as herding on the grasslands didn’t require literacy.
To promote modern education in Tibet, the Principal combined the traditional monastic education system with the modern school system to create a unique integrated model that admitted both monks and lay students of all ages. Since pastoral families in Tibetan areas don’t face the same academic or employment pressures as in mainland China, it was common to see young teenagers studying alongside older herdsmen with beards who had spent the past decade tending sheep in the same classroom. Ragya School placed no restrictions on age, religious status, or sect. Even students who were completely illiterate at the time of admission were treated equally. They lined up to register and were placed in classes according to their level of Tibetan literacy.
As a welfare school, Ragya School adhered to the principle of “education for all without discrimination.” Each year, the school enrolls about 200 students; sometimes, even the principal’s relatives have to wait in line for three years before being admitted. Priority was given to orphans, dropouts, overage youth, and young monks from poor rural and nomadic families. The school even accepted Mongolian, Han, and other ethnic students and tulkus from various regions.
Once admitted, students were provided with free tuition, meals, and accommodation. The school’s curriculum was rooted in the traditional Tibetan “Ten Sciences” while incorporating modern scientific knowledge. The school includes a junior high school and a senior high school. The junior high school offered foundational courses such as basic Tibetan, Mandarin, and mathematics, while the senior high school evolved into a vocational high school with seven specialized programs tailored to Tibetan culture: Tibetan medicine, advanced Tibetan studies, computer applications, tourism, English, arts and crafts (Thangka painting), film production, and alpine guiding. Most of these programs were developed as school-based curricula with published textbooks.
The school accommodated more than 1,000 students, ranging in age from 6 to 42, with about one-third being monks. Students came from farming and herding regions across Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and beyond.
02 Difficult Start-up, Unique Operational Methods
The establishment of the school was initially very difficult, lacking resources in many ways: funding, policies, teachers, and construction were all challenges. The principal was neither a Rinpoche nor a distinguished eminent monk. When the school was founded, he only had 3,000 yuan in deposit. He had to travel extensively, seeking loans and resources, hoping to persuade people to support his endeavor. Eventually, he gained the support of Rinpoche from various monasteries and the then-governor of Golog Prefecture. After many twists and turns, he secured land and obtained the government’s approval to open the school.
When the school was first established, the campus was built with the help of the nine students who initially enrolled. At that time, the students and teachers had no accommodation and had to live at the Ragya Monastery. During winter weekends, they would go to nearby mountains to gather branches and yak dung to keep the stoves burning for warmth. Local villagers, monks from Ragya monastery, and the school’s students worked together, using bags to carry soil and level the ground to create the sports field. They also felled trees to construct the first school buildings.
In a documentary about the school’s history, I saw how the wood for the early buildings was sourced. The students were allocated into three groups: the first group felled trees upstream of the Yellow River; the second group floated the logs down the river to Ragya; and the third group retrieved the wood from the shallow banks of the Yellow River near the school. This was how many of the school’s early buildings were constructed.
Principal Jigme Gyaltsen was an educator and an entrepreneur. The school initially maintained its independence through funding provided by the “Snowland Treasures” dairy company (hereafter referred to as the Dairy Factory), which he established. The factory’s early techniques were learned from two Europeans, and its dairy products were initially exported overseas. The dairy business provided income for herders and all its profits were used to cover the school’s expenses, allowing it to offer free education and boarding for students and pay staff salaries.
By the time I had just graduated from university and began to engage with the operations of social organizations, I was amazed at how the principal, who had spent years on the plateau, learned and established such a progressive concept of “social enterprise.” By using this advanced model, he promoted sustainable development in pastoral regions.
Later, however, the export channels for the dairy factory’s products faced issues, and the products could no longer be sold overseas, leaving the domestic market as the only option. Over time, the factory’s efficiency declined, and the principal had to seek funding from other sources. Given the influence of Ragya School and the principal’s reputation, fundraising was not initially difficult. At that time, various social sectors and local governments were eager to provide resources to the school: The Hong Kong Jockey Club funded the construction of modern school buildings. The Trace Foundation supported several school expenses. Beijing Blue Charity Foundation donated many books to the school library. Government subsidies were provided to impoverished students for living expenses.
However, transferring donations to the school’s accounts became more difficult due to increasingly restrictive government regulations and policies. Overseas funds were no longer accepted, and even domestic funds could not be accessed. Gradually, the school began to experience financial difficulties. Before it closed, it was said that the school had gone three years without paying regular salaries.
The teachers’ salaries had never been high to begin with, and when the financial issues arose, the school stopped paying the salaries of monastic teachers. Since the monks don’t have families to support, the school provided their meals and accommodations, and their families could provide tiny allowances for personal expenses. However, lay teachers, who had families to support, found it much harder to cope. Many had no choice but to leave the school.
One teacher, who had studied at a university on the mainland, told me that working at Ragya school was a social service but not a service without an end. After serving for some time, one had to leave—continuing serving was not sustainable.
In October 2018, the Trace Foundation issued an open letter announcing its gradual cessation of most activities in Tibetan areas of China, citing fundamental changes in conditions on the Tibetan Plateau for an overseas foundation. The Trace Foundation, headquartered in New York, funds and supports community and educational initiatives in Tibet. Many private Tibetan-language schools, including Ragya School, have received their support.
At the time, I was in China and completely unaware of this significant change. I had only heard sporadically that introducing China’s Foreign NGO Law had made it difficult for foreign donors to fund initiatives like ours. Back in the day, my knowledge of Tibet was very limited, and I didn’t know where to find reliable research materials to learn. Our projects run by our organization in Tibetan areas also faced challenges: we struggled to find full-time teachers willing to work on the Tibetan Plateau and secure funding partners interested in supporting this project.
As a recent college graduate on a short-term network technician assignment, I was just beginning my journey on this plateau. My responsibilities were to consolidate and transform the outcomes of earlier projects and wind down some of the initiatives. Click here to read more.
