Chinese, foreign scholars discuss education development in China's ethnic minority areas

BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and foreign scholars discussed the development of education and protection of rights in China's ethnic minority areas on Saturday at a side event of the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

As the world is facing drastic changes unseen in a century and intensified confrontation, education serves as a bridge to promote global communication and mutual understanding as well as a foundation for global peace and development, said Ye Hailin, deputy director of the bureau of international cooperation of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), at the meeting held in a combination of online and offline forms.

China has adopted a series of policies and regulations to effectively protect the rights of all ethnic groups to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, said Ma Rong, a professor at Peking University.

In some areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in China, minority languages are still the mother tongue of local people and the main means of communication in family and community life, introduced Ma.

Yu Mingxiao, an associate researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology under the CASS, said that Tibetan autonomous prefectures in Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces have seen rapid development and markedly improved level of education, and local people's satisfaction with education has been on the rise.