Teachers from China’s interior are being encouraged to move to and settle in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) to provide “aid” for residents, according to sources, but members of the Uyghur exile community say the program is another measure aimed at “colonizing” their homeland. The “Plan to Aid Tibet and Xinjiang with 10,000 Teachers” was envisioned by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Central Party Committee as a “long-term solution for the stability” of the two regions, according to the official China Education Net, and has been promoted—along with other policies in the region—as a form of “poverty alleviation” to improve the lives of the local population.
At its launch in 2018, 4,000 teachers were sent to the XUAR from China’s interior, while in 2019, another 3,180 were shipped to the western region. While contract periods initially lasted between 18 months and two years, authorities have recently begun offering a plethora of subsidies to entice teachers to remain in the XUAR beyond the terms of their agreements, sources have told RFA’s Uyghur Service.
Beijing shuttered schools across China in February to control the spread of the coronavirus, but as measures to combat the outbreak appear to have yielded results, authorities reopened them in the XUAR on March 23.
