Name:Feng XinTing  Student ID: S08340

Research paper supervisor:Dr.Sekou Conde

Minzu University of China

2008-2009 Academic Year

 

Abstract: Education is important for everyone and evryt ethnic groups as well. Education can not noly tell people knowledge and how to create a life, but it can also generate ethnic cultures. As a sample of Chinese ethnic groups’ education, Mongolian education study can be a direction to the whole ethnic education. This thesis has four parts of Mongolian education. First, it is the overview of Mongolian education and the current situation of Chinese Mongolian. Second, it points out some serious problems in present Mongolian education. Third, it gives some suggestions about how to solve these problems and how to well improve Mongolian education. Finally, it is the conclusion about this thesis. This thesis focus on both Mongolian school education and Mongolian culture, and it also discusses multicultural education’s function to keep ethnic culture.

Key words: Mongolian education; Mongolian culture; Multicultural education

I.The overview of Mongolian education

1.1 Literature review

There are a lot of people concern about a lot of Mongolian education, and the research about Mongolian education. For example: Mongolian Education in Yuan Dynasty, Mongolian Education in Qing Dynasty and Decade of Mongolian Education in Heilongjiang are focus on Mongolian education in history, while the Status Quo and Countermeasures for Bazhou Mongolian Education and Outline of Modern Mongolian Education in Xinjiang are focus on some certain places’ Mongolian education.

In addition, Mongolian scholars always hold some symposiums talk about Mongolian education. The representational one was the Mongolian Education Symposium of the Three Povinces in Northeast China which was hold at Qian GuoerluosiQian Gorlos in 2008.

Meanwhile, during these years Chinses scholar Ma Rong and some other scholars have formed an investigation team in order to study Mongolian education in Northern China. They have achieved some results which can help a lot to current Mongolian education.

1.2 Overview of Chinese Mongolian

The Mongolian people have a long history. As a great nationality, they have a rich variety of cultural resources. Mongolian people distribute in almost every place of China and the population of Mongolian people in China now is 5,813,947. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is the most populous locality as which has the most Mongolians in China, and the number of Mongolians here is 3,995,349. There are 149,857 Mongolians in Xinjiang. And in Qinghai, Gansu, Hebei Province also have mass Mongolians.[1]

Mongolians have their own language, which belongs to the Mongolian Austronesian of Altai Phylum. There are three dialects of Chinese Mongolian language. “As a part of education, our government has published a lot of books and magazines in Mongolian since New China was founded. And these publications cover different fields, for example, Political, economic, cultural, science and technology, education and so on.”[2] Here we can see that our government has done a lot to promote ethnic education.

1.3 The current situation of Mongolian Education in China

Mongolian characteristics education in early years accessed to education in practice. That means to teach in their daily life. At the time of Yuan dynasty, the rulers set up some certain schools in the capital to educate their Mongolian children. At Ming and Qing Dynasties, private school education was really popular in the Mongolian region. After the 1911 Revolution, private school education was gradually replaced by the new style school in the Mongolian region.  The years after 1930s, primary and secondary schools, even the teacher training school had been widespread in the Mongolian region. During all the process, the Mongolian education has made a great development.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, some Mongolian primary and secondary schools were set up for the Mongolian people, even some Mongolian Ethnic Schools were set up as well in the places where the Mongolian people were mass, for example in Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin and some other large and medium-sized cities in China. During this time, the Pre-school teaching developed a lot in Mongolian regions as well. And some universities also set up the Department of Mongolian Language and Literature and some specialties which were taught in Mongolian. High school graduates in these Mongolian regions can pass the exam to enter every university in China or enter Colleges and Universities which have Department of Mongolian Language and Literature.

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is the main place for Mongolian people to live in, has formed integral system of education, which contains pre-primary, primary education, secondary education, vocational education, teacher education, adult education and higher education.

At the end of the 20th century, the Counties in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have set up a total of 108 kindergartens with 71,522 students, and 2,399 Mongolian primary schools with 380,622 students, and 265 Mongolian secondary schools with 80,384 students, and 38 Mongolian-medium secondary vocational school with 11,305 students, and 7 Mongolian collages and universities, which have specialties taught with Mongolian, with 7,775 students. Overall, the proportion of Mongolian medium is as follows: primary schools accounted for 60%, junior high school accounted for 58.5%, high schools accounting for 59.53%. Compared with the time of early age of People's Republic of China’s foundation, the number of primary students in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has increased by 7.6 times, and the number of middle school students has increased by 199.4 times, and the number of College Students is more than 7,800.[3]

ⅡThe problems in Chinese Mongolian Education

2.1 there are less and less pupils in Chinese Mongolian grade schools.

We can say that each individual has a high life expectation of their own life in the future. But now the current reality is so cruel that it is really hard for every collage and university graduates to find a job, especially a good or approving job. This cruel reality directly affect the students’ goal to study, because they need not only finish their daily and basal studies, but they should also think about the exam to enter collage in the future, even bear the pressure of the their future job and some other earthy things. For the Mongolian students, the pressure of finding a job loses their interest to study and accept high education. Under this circumstance, a large number of Mongolian students drop out of school and go out to be a migrant workers.

After reform and opening-up, population movements become more and more frequent. The direct effect is that large changes in population distribution. This creates a serious reduction in Mongolian schools’ students. Migratory movements of population decreased the Mongolian population in a comparative way. First of all, a large number of rural Mongolian populations in China move to urban areas to be migrant workers. Secondly, some people in Mongolian ghettos begin to flow to more developed areas, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and so on. In Zhuang Kongshao’s book educational anthropology, Zhuang says that “We can see that in some undeveloped agricultural and pastoral areas, many youth leave schools just in order to be a labor force of the families, and this is a serious problem to decrease the enrollment rate.”[4]This is a really situation of the current Mongolian education.

Population movements can affect education in a direct way. The declining population of the proportion and negative growth of population cause a direct significant reduction of Mongolian students in Mongolian schools. Now we can see the truth is that enrollment a rate of elementary schools in rural areas or small towns is in a clear downward trend. The reduction of students make the scale of many Primary and secondary schools in rural places become shrinking and shrinking, even some schools have to be combined or closed. At the same time, pupils in rural places have to go to other countries or town to accept education after the inter-village and inter-rural schools are cancelled during the nearly years.

We all know that education has very important functions. As Feng Zengjun has said “The aim of education is to generate and keep culture in purposeful and conscious way. And education can help people to choose and reorganize their culture to improve their culture.”[5]And school education is even more important for children to generate their own ethnic group’s culture. The same view from Feng Zengjun can prove this: “School serves as a cultural transmission institution in order to transfer their culture to the next generation, and the next generation as well can come into a culture which is in continuous development.”[6] From these important functions of education, we should take seriously about the question of less and less pupils in Chinese Mongolian grade schools.

2.2 more and more Chinese Mongolian pupils go to schools which Chinese are mainly used and their self identity become weaker it

The Mongolian students who take part in Minzu-Minzu examination will sure have very little choice about their majors. For these students, the majors what they can apply are really limited, because these majors mainly focus on some old traditional majors as Mongolian Language and Literature, Mongolian history, Mongolian politics, Mongolian Press and Publications and so on. But we can see that the graduates from these majors are really hard to find a job, because these industries have little need of fresh graduates. That is to say, this situation is also a direct reason for Mongolian students give up accepting education and turn to be migrant workers.

Over the years, the Mongolian students who take part in Minzu-Minzu examination have a low rate for entering into collages and universities. And they can choose less majors and it is hard for them to obtain employment. All these problems blow the Mongolian people’s enthusiasm to send their children to Mongolian language schools. This circumstance leads to some abnormal phenomenon, such as the Mongolian people’s have to choose a special school for their children or transfer their children to some certain school. Some Mongolian parents who live in cities always send their children to Chinese schools. So the parents who live in agricultural and pastoral areas refer to those parents who live in cities and send their children to Chinese school in order to solve the difficult problems of entering into collages and universities and job hunting. Although these kinds of phenomenon can be understandable, but this surely leads to many Mongolian students outflow to Chinese schools, and the Mongolian ethnic education is badly impacted. If this phenomenon continues, the Mongolian education will not be guaranteed.

The reality of large number of Mongolian school students come into Chinese schools will definitely bring some conflicts for some students, and even come out some emotional refusal to cooperate. Nowadays many teachers from Mongolian areas complain about the reduction of Mongolian students and many Mongolian students outflow to some other Chinese schools. Some of them quite critical of this kind of phenomenon, and they generalize this kind of phenomenon as “the beginning of assimilation”. This kind of reaction is common and rational, although the generality is partially biased as the real situation is really not optimistic. If we don’t study and solve this problem and just do nothing to this and let this phenomenon go on, the result will be surely serious to the Mongolian culture generation and Mongolian development. Seriously, the achievements of Mongolian education that we have made in such a long history will be badly damaged, and the image of our multi-family of nations will surely be affected.

Although we say that “Everyone can accept education in a proper way. This means everyone has equal chance to take education and he/she can choose the way he/she will take education as well.”[7]As some Mongolian teachers have said, “the beginning of assimilation” will do badly to the Mongolian culture and Mongolian people’s self-identity. Because these students who go to Chinese schools have to give up or stop their traditional Mongolian culture and accept a new kind of culture which is born with industrialization and modernization. But the traditional Mongolian culture is closely related with prairie and nomadic. This kind of culture is totally different from the modern culture. As the result, we can see that going to Chinese school will stop their traditional Prairie Culture, or do badly to the generation of their Prairie Culture. In the same way, when these students accept the industrialization culture, they will gradually lose their identity as Mongolian people. That is to say these students will lose their self-identity to their own nationality or their self-identity will become weaker and weaker. As a unique culture, Mongolian culture is always great both in history and today. That must be a sad thing as the Mongolian culture comes out such problems to affect its development.

 

 

 

 

Ⅲ Some ways to improve Chinese Mongolian Education

3.1 Adjust the layout of education, and increase the investment in education

Some of the schools in pastoral areas distribute unreasonably and most of the schools are sporadic. So we should adjust these schools in pastoral areas in order to integrate all the education resources and well use these resources so that we can develop Mongolian education in an appropriate effective way. At the same time, the teachers’ ability should be improved as well. So when we adjust education resource, we should also train the teachers and optimize the structure of these teachers. The diathesis of teachers determines the quality of teaching. Training the teachers should concern on the following aspects. First, we should popularize teachers’ training. Secondly, there must be some emphasis, such as focus on training some key teaching personals and offer some opportunities and qualifications in order to increase the Teaching Quality.

If we can adjust the layout of schools, we can then increase the investment to these schools. This investment can be used to improve the hardware facilities and introduce some talents to these schools. For example, we can give every school adequate teaching equipments for them to improve the teaching and studying efficiency. We can employ some professionals to open music courses, sports courses, fine arts courses so that the students can well learn and master their own nationality’s special music, sports and fine arts. For another aspect, these courses can also develop students’ intellect and their knowledge to the world. [8] China's overall education is now showing a pyramid structure. That is to say that our higher education is still very small. One of the purposes of education is to complete the process of socialization to every student. The process of individual’s socialization asks our primary education to provide qualified industrial personals when our primary education supplies talents to the higher-level education. Our current society is impetuous, and most of us focus on high education while we hope accept high education just aiming to increase our personal capital. In other words, when we think too much of accepting high education, we neglect what our industrial society needs. From this point, we should also adjust our educational structure and strive for multi-level education. What I mean is that we should also develop Vocational Education. Developing Vocational Education has two very important effects. One is to triage students and to reduce the pressure of entering into high education schools. The other effect is that those who go to vocational schools can learn a variety of practical science and technology easily and they can find a job easily. For another meaning, Vocational Education is an integral part of Mongolian traditional culture, and it can also promote the Mongolian culture of innovation and development. [9] Now we can also say that vocational education is the base for Mongolian culture to tend towards modernization.

3.2 Vigorously promote bilingual education

The rapid development of China's social and economic has greatly changed our people’s live style, and our way of thinking and values are changed as well. In such a context, implementing bilingual education has been widely accepted by every ethnic group. Bilingual education, as Teng Xing says “is that ‘in minority schools, there are plans to set up minority languages and Chinese as two courses in order to make the minority students master Chinese and Chinese languages.’”[10] It is necessary for the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to go on promoting bilingual education policy. In a sense, we can say that it is a major change of educational concept to initiate and implement bilingual education. Most of the Mongolian teachers and students attached great importance to bilingual education. The truth is that Mongolian people have a higher willing to enter into mainstream culture. This reality makes many Mongolian have a better understanding of multi-cultures, and it is also active for them to learn from other nationalities. There is no wonder they support bilingual education so much.

However, there are many problems in the quality of bilingual education, bilingual education teachers. Current bilingual education can not fit Mongolian students’ need of knowledge. Therefore, no matter the quality of teaching or the Mongolian students to adapt to modern society, even to develop and carry forward the Mongolian culture, we should further promote bilingual education. We all know that the normal operation of the education depends entirely on teachers and the supply of teaching materials. Now we can see that it is necessary to strengthen training “bilingual” teachers and improve teaching materials. Excellent “bilingual” teachers and good teaching materials will surely enhance the quality of Mongolian education fast. [11] We should know that school education contains many aspects, but the most important one is curriculum. Students, teachers and the supervisors of one school are controlled by all the curriculums. School education should educate students according to the different needs of educators and educatees’, and what this society needs as well. So the supervisors of school should build the school curriculum and organize to implementate teaching according to different needs. During this process, the supervisors should also well realize the relationship between Mongolian culture, farming culture, industrial culture so that the students can improve their knowledge about both their own culture and other cultures. Besides, the supervisors should enhance the education about the fine traditional Mongolian culture. This is to promote the Mongolian culture to students in a systematic way.

3.3 Use policy to improve Mongolian education and keep their cultural heritage

And our government thinks ethnic education it is important and it makes much ethnic education policy in order to protect the right of ethnic minorities’ equal access to education according to the characteristics and the realities of ethnic minorities. This does great to Mongolian education. The follow number can be a support of this.

Year	1982	2000
Illiteracy rate	29.8%	7.9%

Statistics from Census Office of the State Council

But there are still some problems of our current ethnic education policy. Our national education policy pay more attention to right of the ethnic minorities to get education, but it ignores ethnic education’s function to maintain their ethnic group’s traditional culture.[12] General speaking, the building of our national education policy has had many achievements mainly in the following areas. First, we have shaped a relatively integral system of national education policy. Second, his national education policy develops step by step and its goals are clearer and clearer, while the measures of the national education policy are more and more specific. Third, his national education policy gradually develops to legal system and the initial formation of the national education system has taken shape. [13] But as everything is a double-edged sword, national education policy also has some problems.

However, there are still some problems of the construction of national education policy. First, the level of national education policy is to low. Second, the guiding ideology of the national education policy should be further improved. Third, the national education policy are still imperfect, the focal points are not prominent. Fourth, the executed and monitoring system of national education are far from formation.

According to China's national education policy and the problems, there should have clear goals of national education policy, and we should focus on solving some unique problems of national education problems in the coming period. Still more, we need some measures to evaluate and inspect the results of national education policy. All in all, we should well use national education policy’s functions of ensuring and accelerating national education so that our policy can well promote our national education’s reformation and development. [14] If we take national education policy as tool and well use it, it will do much more to the ethnic education.

3.4 develop multicultural education to adapt the globalization

When the concept of multicultural education is brought forward as a new method to develop education, it has drawn many multinational countries attention. Multicultural education means that “in multinational countries, there should be a education reform movement in order to meet the needs of minority groups or individuals in culture, consciousness, self-evaluation, which aims to help all the ethnic groups of different cultures to learn how to live a positive and harmonious life in this multicultural society. And it can also keep balance between different ethnic groups as well as taking the basis of ethnic differences into account to respect and tolerant each ethnic groups.”[15] Multicultural education has great functions to every ethnic group and our multicultural society. The fundamental goal of education is: to make different cultures, races, religions, social class groups of the institutes to maintain peace and co-ordinate among each other ethnic groups, then finally to achieve a symbiotic relationship. Education in multi-ethnic country should be responsible for transferring the human being shared cultural achievements. And it should also not only transfer the mainstream culture of the nations, but also it should transfer the ethnic minorities’ traditional culture at the same time.

For the each ethnic group, multicultural education still has its special function. We know that the most concerned problem of national education policy is that it does nothing to ethnic education’s function of maintaining their ethnic group’s traditional culture. [16] But cultural relativism hold the view that: we should respect each kind of culture among different cultures, and we should emphasize a variety of lifestyles’ value rather than only one. And cultural pluralism also hold the view that in a multi-ethnic country, each ethnic group can be retained, the nation's language and traditional culture, they should also be integrated into the national language and culture and to share at the same time. [17] So we could say that the main ethnic group’s culture should stay together with other minorities’ cultures together in a multi-ethnic country. From what multicultural education aims at, we will say that the problems of ethnic culture will gradually disappear if the multicultural education can put well in force.

Ⅳ. Conclusion

“Culture or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” [18] In the process of planning something, dealing with the nature, making tools, set up organizations and show themselves, human beings show that they are creative, and they are the result of cultural creation. The good aspects of ethnic education have very important significances for promoting their ethnic culture and carrying forward the heritage of their great traditional culture.

Mongolian education, as a stylebook of Chinese ethnic education, has made great achievements, but it also has some problems which hinder the development of Mongolian education. We must take steps to solve these problems so that our Mongolian education can develop in a good way. As we know that “the education will failed if we pursue to unify the way of education instead of count local culture and local lifestyle in the country there are clear differentiations among ethnic groups.”[19]

Works Cited

[1]. Census data in 2000

[2]. edited by Yang Shengmin, Ding Hong, Chinese Ethnography, Minzu University of China Publish House, 2003, p108-109.

[3]. http://mongoliayouth.5d6d.com/thread-222-1-1.html

[4]. Zhuang Kongshao, educational anthropology, Heilongjiang Education Press, 1989, p118

[5]. edited by Feng Zengjun, Anthropology of Education Guide, People’s Education Press, 2005, p305.

[6]. edited by Feng Zengjun, Anthropology of Education Guide, People’s Education Press, 2005, p 258.

[7]. Zhuang Kongshao, educational anthropology, Heilongjiang Education Press, 1989, p159.

[8]. http://www.mzb.com.cn/onews.asp?id=25950

[9]. Li Xi, Yang Hua, Li Yingzhou: the Education Reform in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture under in Current Situation, on Journal of the Central University for Nationalities, vol.3, 2008.

[10]. Teng Xing: Teng Xing, Ethinic Groups, culture and education, National Press, 2002, P423.

[11]. Gao Ochirbat: the Status Quo and Suggestions of the Education Development in Bazhou, on N.W. Ethno-National Studies, vol.3, 2008.

[12]. Chen Lipeng: Review and Assessment to China's national education policy in the 30-year’s Reform and Opening-up, on Ethnic Studies, vol.5, 2008.

[13]. Chen Lipeng, Liu Yanqing, China's national education policy in the 30-year’s, on Chinese ethnic education, vol.11, 2008.

[14]. Chen Lipeng: Review and Assessment to China's national education policy in the 30-year’s Reform and Opening-up, on Ethnic Studies, vol.5, 2008.

[15]. JamesA. Bank s:An Introduction to Multicultural Education. Allyn & Bacon Publish House, 1999.

[16]. Chen Lipeng: Review and Assessment to China's national education policy in the 30-year’s Reform and Opening-up, on Ethnic Studies, vol.5, 2008.

[17]. Ha Jingxiong, Teng Xing: General Theory of National Education, Education and Science Press, 2002, p300.

[18]. Tylor, Edward. 1920 [1871]. Primitive Culture. New York: J.P. Putnam’s Sons.1.

[19. ]Zhuang Kongshao, educational anthropology, Heilongjiang Education Press, 1989, p 327