Tibetan areas get bilingual kindergarten books

More than 6,000 bilingual children's books have been distributed this week to four kindergartens in a remote part of southwest China, part of a drive to promote bilingual education in disadvantaged Tibetan areas.

The books, distributed to Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, were published by a government-supported translation bureau in the prefecture. This is one of the first large print runs of bilingual books for pre-school children in Tibetan areas, most of which are in Tibet Autonomous Region as well as the provinces of Qinghai and Sichuan.

There are very few children's books in Tibetan areas, Xiangqiu Doje, head of Ngawa's translation bureau, said on Wednesday. Kindergarten teachers usually tell stories translated from Mandarin books into Tibetan language.

China has been promoting bilingual education in all Tibetan areas, where language teaching is divided equally into Tibetan and Mandarin. In Ngawa, compulsory education has been extended to kindergartens since 2013.

Doje said the bureau plans to publish 50 bilingual kids' publications this year. Among them will be popular Western stories as well as domestic ones.

The bureau is also compiling Tibetan folk stories into audio books for children, and working on bilingual TV programs and movies targeting pre-schoolers.

Government-supported publishing is part of a broader plan by central authorities to improve livelihoods in Tibetan areas. The government pumped 11.5 billion yuan (1.84 billion U.S. dollars) into this work in 2013 and 2014.