October 19, 2026 (updated November 9, 2026)
Translated by TenGyal
Since late August, under its policy of Sinicisation and on the pretext of incomplete legal paperwork, the Chinese government has forcibly shut down three schools known for their Tibetan-language education, all in Machen County, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture: the Gangjong Grassland Girls’ School, the Jasag Village Primary School and the Golog Tadrak Orphans’ School.
The closures come only months after China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law took effect on July 1, 2026, and follow a series of earlier shutdowns of independent Tibetan schools in Golog.
School No. 1
Gangjong Grassland Girls’ School
Under pressure from the Chinese authorities, the Gangjong Grassland Girls’ School was forced to close on August 28, 2026. Founded on October 15, 2005, by the renowned Tibetan educator Ragya Jigme Gyaltsen, the school gave Tibetan girls an education combining traditional and modern learning for more than 20 years. It is also known as the Prairie Talent Girls’ School and the Gangjong Tsathang Girls’ School.
This year the school had about 448 students, 44 full-time teachers and 63 other staff. Following the nine-year compulsory education system, it ran six primary classes covering a six-year programme and six junior middle school classes covering a three-year programme.
The school lies about 20 km from Ragya Township, below the sacred mountain Amnye Ke Tho Yi. Many of its graduates went on to study at Northwest Minzu University and other universities in Tibetan areas and in major Chinese cities, and now work in many fields of Tibetan society. The school has long been held in high regard among Tibetans for its contribution to Tibetan-language education.
The sudden closure has caused deep sorrow among current and former teachers and students, and among Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. Their grief spilled onto social media around October 15, which would have been the school’s 21st anniversary. One message read: “Today is the anniversary of our alma mater, the Gangjong Grassland Girls’ School. For 21 years we, teachers and students, shared it together. From this year we no longer have that fortune, but we will never forget the school, nor the kindness of our teachers.” Others wrote: “A realm where the golden rays of our mother tongue shone has set,” “My central pillar, you have set forever,”“A great benefactor of the Land of Snows,”“Master Jigme Gyaltsen, whose kindness is as great as the snow peaks,” and “Because you existed, we had a pillar to stand on.”
Over a nine-year course from primary to middle school, young women from all three traditional regions of Tibet (U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) studied Tibetan, Chinese and English, along with mathematics, science, computing, geography, history and politics. Tibetan grammar, spelling and poetry were core subjects, giving the girls a grounding in their own language and literature that few other schools in the area could offer. Jigme Gyaltsen has long argued that educating girls means educating future mothers, and that this is the foundation of all education.
The school began as a private institution founded by Jigme Gyaltsen. After it was placed under the Machen County Education Bureau, he remained its honorary principal. According to reliable information, Jigme Gyaltsen is currently barred from travelling outside Golog Prefecture. Reports also say that Dorje Tsultrim and Gyiling Jigme, teachers at the Gangjong Sherig Norling School, which he founded in 1994 and which was closed in July 2024, have been interrogated.
Geshe Lobsang Palden of Ragya, a former political prisoner who provided the information, said more than one thousand students have graduated from the girls’ school, and that the lack of standard documentation was used as a pretext to close it.
Other reports add to the picture. A source told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that the school had already become a government-affiliated institution following the state curriculum while keeping some Tibetan-language teaching, and that schools across Golog are now holding an intense patriotic re-education campaign. Bitter Winter, citing Lhasa Spring, reported that after the closure the authorities took over the premises and renamed it Ragya Town Girls’ Middle School. Where the students have gone remains unclear.
School No. 2
Jasag Village Primary School
In September this year, the Machen County government forcibly shut down the Jasag Village Primary School in Ragya Township. The school was founded in 1995 with funds collected by the nomads of the Jasag Nomadic Committee under the former Ragya Township. In 2004, during the first round of educational restructuring, when nomadic primary schools across the county were being merged or closed, it survived after strong appeals from the local community. In 2008 it was officially renamed Ragya Town Boarding School No. 2. According to the school’s records, it was then the only remaining nomadic boarding primary school in Machen County.
According to Geshe Lobsang Palden, the school had about 300 students and more than 20 teachers and staff this year. Through the hard work of local Tibetans over the years, the community created a place where children could study a range of subjects centred on the Tibetan language, and built substantial facilities, including an assembly hall and classrooms. Teaching was bilingual, in Tibetan and Chinese, from grades one to six. Students came from the three Jasag villages under Ragya (Jasag De Shungma, Yagkhya and Theujye) and from nearby Nagkor village, which also sent many of its children there.
Explaining the closure, he said: “They closed it under the pretext that the legal paperwork required to operate the school was incomplete.” The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) reported that local authorities ruled the school could no longer teach in Tibetan, and an RFA source said the Golog Education Department put heavy pressure on its teachers before closing it without a clear explanation. How many students the school educated over the years, and where its pupils are now studying, remain unknown.
School No. 3
Golog Tadrak Orphans’ School
On the orders of the Chinese government, the Golog Tadrak Orphans’ School (果洛道扎福利学校) in Tawo Town, Machen County, was forced to close in early October 2026. For about 20 years the school provided Tibetan orphans with free food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education. A person familiar with the school confirmed the closure, but the authorities have given no reason, and the students’ whereabouts are unknown. (The CTA and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy have reported an earlier closure date, September 2, 2026.)
The school was founded in 2005 by the late Dr. Tawu Lobsang Palden (1951–2019) and his wife, Choenyi Lhamo. Born in Tawu, Kham, in 1951, Dr. Palden went into exile as a child and moved to Germany at the age of 12, where he became a medical doctor and also released several music albums under the title Trinkhor.
In 1995 he founded the Tadra Project in Germany, which set up its first orphans’ school in his native Tawu in 1997. The Golog school was the project’s second phase, founded in 2005 and officially opened in August 2006. It has been funded by Tadra foundations in Germany and Switzerland. Dr. Tawu Lobsang Palden died on February 4, 2019, in Bavaria, Germany.
According to a report the school published in 2018, it was the only public-welfare school in Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture offering orphans nine years of education. It was set up with official approval from the Golog Prefectural Party Committee, the prefectural government, the Education Bureau and the Civil Affairs Bureau, and was later placed under the Machen County Education Bureau. In 2018 it had 280 students in 11 classes, from kindergarten to vocational training, with 28 teachers and staff and eight “housemothers” caring for the children. Besides orphans from across Golog, it took in more than 30 children orphaned by the 2010 Yushu earthquake, and it taught tailoring, thangka painting, carving and carpet weaving to older orphans who had never been to school.
The school admitted at least 30 orphans each year, regardless of gender or age, and covered all their living, tuition and medical costs. Besides scholarships from the Tadra Foundation, it received Qinghai provincial tuition subsidies, winter heating allowances and orphan living stipends from the Machen County Civil Affairs Bureau, as well as donations from private Chinese benefactors.
Local authorities themselves praised the school. At the 2008 Golog Prefecture Education Conference it was named an exemplary school, and its principal, Thupten Nyima, was honoured as an “Outstanding Principal.” In 2015 its students reportedly ranked first in Golog Prefecture in the high school entrance examinations.
According to the Tadra Project’s website, the project has supported more than 700 orphans at its two schools in Golog and Tawu. The Swiss Tadra Foundation’s website notes that the Golog school celebrated its 20th anniversary in late July 2025, just over a year before its closure. At that event, RFA reported, Principal Thupten Nyima said the school had trained more than 1,000 students. In a recent video posted online, he told students and teachers not to be sad and expressed hope that, if fate allowed, they would one day sing together again.
A Pattern of Closures
The three schools have much in common. All were in Machen County, Golog. Each began as a private institution and was later placed under the local Education Bureau. And all played a vital role in teaching Tibetan language, grammar, poetry and traditional skills.
They are also the latest in a series. The authorities closed Sengdruk Taktse School in July 2021; the Gangjong Sherig Norling School, with about 1,400 students, in July 2024; Dorjeten National Vocational School in Chikdril County on December 12, 2025; and Hungkar Dorje Vocational Secondary School on June 24, 2026. At the same time, Golog children are being sent to new state boarding schools outside the prefecture: the Golog Tsoshar Middle School in Ledu, near Xining, opened on September 1, 2026, with 1,200 students, most of them Tibetan.
Who ordered the closures remains unclear. When RFA contacted the Golog Prefecture Education Department, it said the work had been carried out by Machen County; the Machen County Education Department said it had no authority to comment. Geshe Lobsang Palden told RFA that such schools could not legally be closed before, but that many have shut since the Ethnic Unity Law took effect in July. Tibetan educational sociologist Dr. Gyal Lo told RFA that Beijing sees schools where Tibetans organise their own education as “a thorn in its side,” and warned that sending children to Chinese-medium state boarding schools cuts them off from their own traditions.
Tibet Times has also sought comment from two experts on Chinese education policy and law but has not yet received a response. This report will be updated when it does.
