Exceptions to the Rule: Rural and Nomadic Tibetans Gaining Access to Dislocated Elite Inland Boarding Schools

Abstract

Initially established for nation-state integration and human capital cultivation in 1985, neidiban (dislocated Tibetan schools/classes in major Chinese cities) soon became the elite track of junior secondary education with fierce competition for admission. Rural and nomadic Tibetans were under-represented in admission to these schools. This chapter explores how exceptional ability, unusual family conditions, and primary school experience contributed to neidiban access for a few rural and nomadic Tibetans prior to the mid-1990s. We analyzed policy documents and oral history interviews with 58 neidiban graduates from rural and nomadic areas. We argue that these rural and nomadic Tibetans managed to overcome their cultural obstacles and gain neidiban admission thanks to their unusual adaption to learning mainstream knowledge at school and their unusually supportive family conditions. Our research contributes to deepening our understanding of the persisting challenges to popularizing compulsory education in rural and nomadic Tibet.