| Dear delegates and experts: I'm Tuersun Aibai, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Xinjiang University. It's my great honor to attend this conference. First of all, I would like to share with you my personal experience. When my father died in 1996, I was just in sixth grade, my younger brother in third grade, and my mother was a housewife. In 1999, I was admitted to a technical secondary school. In 2003, I re-took the college entrance examination and was admitted to Fudan University through the National Minority Collaboration Plan. Later, I was admitted to Tsinghua University to pursue a Master’s Degree and a Doctoral Degree through the National Cultivation Plan for Minority High-level Backbone Talents. During this period, students could always enjoy student loans, scholarships and work-study positions provided by the state for their education completion. I still remember back in 2005, when I was just admitted by Fudan University, the university gave me a grant of more than 10,000 yuan, when the tuition fee was only 6,000 yuan. As for my family, all of the 7 siblings including me, has access to national full-time education, of which 3 got a Bachelor's Degree or higher, 4 with a high school or technical secondary diplomas. My family was not exceptional that many people has access to higher education supported by the national preferential policies for ethnic minorities and later have enjoyed a happy and decent life. Our government has been attached great importance to education development, especially that of minority nationalities. In 1949, the illiteracy rate in Xinjiang was over 90 percent, nearly 10 percent above the national illiteracy rate. By 2022, the illiteracy rate in Xinjiang dropped to 2.66 percent, 0.01 percent below the national level. In 1949, Xinjiang had only 1 university, 9 middle schools and 1,355 primary schools, when the enrollment of school-age children was only 19.8 percent. By 2020, all villages have built kindergartens, with 3,641 primary schools, 1,211 regular middle schools, 147 secondary vocational schools (excluding technical schools), 56 regular colleges and universities, and 6 adult colleges and universities. The gross enrollment of preschool education was over 98 percent, the net enrollment rate of primary schools over 99.9 percent, the retention rate of nine-year compulsory education over 95 percent and the gross enrollment of senior high schools exceeded 98 percent. In 2020, 6.497 million students enrolled in schools at all levels in Xinjiang. Among them, 4.845 million were ethnic minority students, accounting for 74.57 percent. Among the educated population in Xinjiang, 16,536 per 100,000 people have received university education, 1,069 in number above the national average. By 2020, Xinjiang has cultivated 2.115 million college graduates, 767,000 were ethnic minorities, accounting for 36.3 percent. This semester, I teach both graduate and undergraduate students. All my classes have ethnic minority students from all over Xinjiang. Besides, some of my students who I supervised in graduation theses are from Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities. In my observation, our university and its affiliated colleges give priority to admission and careful cultivation to ethnic minority students at all academic levels. Walking in the campus, we can see the scene where students from different ethnic backgrounds talking happily and studying peacefully. The Uyghur population is mainly distributed in the four prefectures of southern Xinjiang, accounting for 83.74% of the local population and 74.01% of the total Uygur population. To ensure that all students have access to education, the four prefectures in southern Xinjiang have implemented 15-year free education from kindergarten to high school, and launched a Nutrition Improvement eProgram for Rural Students to Compulsory Education, providing students with free nutritious meals. During my work in rural areas in 2019, I often saw village students taking home eggs and cakes distributed by the school to share with their families. In addition, Xinjiang teaches standard spoken and written Chinese in accordance with the law, while offering Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Mongolian and Xibe courses in primary and secondary schools, giving full guarantee to the right of ethnic minority students to learn their own spoken and written languages. Xinjiang Education Press has been set up, with staff employed for compiling teaching materials in ethnic minority languages, and it has strengthened compilation and publication of teaching materials in ethnic minority languages, as well as published the outlines of various self-written teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, packaged materials, and various extra-curricular reading materials. In my case, I went through primary and high school education in minority language schools. My nieces and nephews have also received education in minority languages. In order to ensure all the right to education, especially those ethnic minorities, Xinjiang has continuously expanded channels to and increased investment in education. Since 1989, Xinjiang has launched the "Collaboration Plan for Mainland Universities to Support Cultivation of Ethnic Minority Talents", whose purpose is to coordinate mainland universities’ admission to ethnic minority students from Xinjiang for better higher education. Nearly 300 schools under central ministries and commissions as well as mainland provinces and cities have admitted 10,000 ethnic minority students from Xinjiang every year. I am also a beneficiary of the program. For example, statistics of 2019 show that over the years, Nanjing University enrolled about 100 students from Xinjiang every year, half of whom were ethnic minorities. In 2000, in order to further accelerate talent cultivation of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, the state organized senior high school classes at key provincial middle schools in some economically developed cities in mainland. By 2021, 93 high schools from 45 cities in 14 provinces and cities across the country have opened classes for Xinjiang students, having cultivated more than 130,000 students. A large number of them are ethnic minority students from remote and rural areas of Xinjiang. My wife used to be a high school graduate too. In 2004, following the model of "Inner High School Classes", Xinjiang opened "Middle SchoolClasses in Xinjiang" in Urumqi and Karamay to admit students from southern Xinjiang, so as to encourage children in southern Xinjiang, especially those from ethnic minorities, to receive quality high school education. In 2022, a total of 12,930 students were enrolled in 41 junior middle schools in Xinjiang. More than 90 percent of them were ethnic minority students in southern Xinjiang. In 2011, in order to cultivate more professional and technical talents from ethnic minorities, the state launched secondary vocational classes for Xinjiang in the mainland, and selected 33 demonstration secondary vocational schools at state-level in 9 economically developed provinces and cities in the mainland to enroll 3,300 junior high school students from Xinjiang every year, of which ethnic minority students from southern Xinjiang account for a large proportion and enjoyed grants and subsidies. In addition, in 2006, the state implemented the "Cultivation Program for High-level Backbone Talents from Ethnic Minorities," and it stipulated that mainland colleges and universities could have target admission of postgraduate students with Master's Degrees or above from ethnic minority areas in the country. By 2021, the program has admitted and cultivated a total of 57,000 graduate students, of which 8,000 are allocated to Xinjiang, a boost to constant increase of ethnic minority graduate students from Xinjiang. I was also admitted to Tsinghua University and completed my studies through this program. In addition, Xinjiang has made great efforts to cultivate high-level talents from ethnic minorities through implementation of the Special Cultivation of Scientific and Technological Backbone of Ethnic Minorities in Xinjiang, which was entrusted by provinces and universities, as well other channels. For example, in 2000, 962 got Postgraduate Degrees in Uyghur population, by 2020, the number reached 11,432, including 988 Master's Degree holders and 1,533 Doctorate Degree holders, an increase of 11.8 times. In 2023, all kinds of education funds reached 103.9 billion yuan, focusing on supporting free pre-school education in rural areas, construction of rural kindergartens, and improvement of nutrition and school premises safety. In short, by vigorous support from the State, the right to education of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang has been fully guaranteed, along with their education level improving continually. The majority of ethnic minorities have changed their destinies through education and led a happy life. As the saying goes, "You don't know if the shoes fit until you wear them.". As a native Uyghur scholar, a beneficiary of the Party's ethnic education policy, as well as a participant and witness of Xinjiang's education development, today I am very happy to share with you what I have seen, heard and thought. I hope my speech can inspire you to know more and have deeper understanding about Xinjiang. I also welcome you to visit Xinjiang and had first-hand experience about Xinjiang. That's all. Thank you. (Tuersun Aibai, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Xinjiang University) |
