Dharamshala — Chinese authorities arrested Tulku Dorje Ten Rinpoche, Director of the “Dorje Ten Ethnic Vocational School" in Jigdril County, Golog, north-eastern Tibet, on December 4, 2025, and his whereabouts remain unknown. After arresting the Director, the Chinese authorities shut down the school and sent the students back to their homes. More than 1,000 students have graduated from the school and hundreds of students are attending universities. The school had more than 1,300 students in 2024, but like other Tibetan-run schools, it has also faced difficulties and has been threatened with closure from the Chinese government since 2024.
According to the reliable sources, the Chinese authorities arrested Tulku Dorje Ten, Director of the “Dorje Ten Ethnic Vocational School”, Menthang Township, Jigdril County (གཅིག་སྒྲིལ་རྫོང་།), Golog, north-eastern Tibet, on December 4, 2025 and he has been missing since then. The Chinese closed the school and sent the students back to their homes. The school teaches Tibetan, Chinese, English, political science, and offers various courses focused on promoting traditional culture, including Tibetan medicine and herbalism, traditional thangka painting, ethnic costume design and tailoring, traditional ethnic music and dance, tourism services and management.
Under Xi Jinping's leadership, the Chinese government has intensified its hardline policy towards the Tibetan education system and Tibetan institutions owned or run by Tibetans, most of whom are high-ranking lamas and Intellectuals. It has banned the Tibetan language in schools and shut down renowned Tibetan schools in Tibet, forcing students to attend State-run boarding schools, where only Chinese language, culture and ideologies are taught, and forcibly separating students from their parents, families, culture, traditions, religion and language.
Since the implementation of Sinicisation policies in Tibet, Tibetan schools have been shut down one after another by the Chinese government. China has shut down renowned Tibetan schools such as Sengdruk Taktse Middle School in 2021, Gaden Rabten Namgyal Ling in 2021, Jigme Gyaltsen Nationalities Vocational School in July 2024, and in October 2024, students from Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery were forcibly transferred to Chinese colonial-style boarding schools. All of this is part of the Chinese government's systematic campaign to impose Chinese-language education and assimilate Tibetan children.
According to the source, the Dorje Ten National Vocational School, located in Golog County in north-eastern Tibet, has also not escaped China's strict sinicisation policy. It has been forcibly closed, its founder and director Dorje Ten Rinpoche has been arrested, and the students have been forcibly sent home. Due to the Chinese government's strict restrictions on information coming out of Tibet and the risk of arrest for Tibetans who share such information, it is difficult to ascertain the real situation on the ground and to know Dorje Ten Rinpoche's whereabouts.
Dorje Ten Rinpoche founded the Nyenpo Yurtse Hope Primary School (གཉན་བོ་གཡུ་རྩེ་རེ་བ་སློབ་ཆུང་།) in Mentang Township in 1997 to educate children from nomadic and poor families who could not afford to provide them with education, food and clothing. Later, Rinpoche also founded the “Dorje Ten Ethnic Vocational School” in 2010 for students who had dropped out of school after failing the National College Entrance Examination, as well as for students who had passed the exam but whose families could not afford university fees and other costs and who had remained at home.
The Rinpoche once said, "I hope our education not only imparts tangible skills but also passes on intangible cultural heritage. Since we are engaged in education, no matter how arduous or exhausting it may be, we must deliver education that is truly responsible to our nation and the next generation."
In 1996, inspired by the international organisation SOS Children's Villages, Dorje Ten Rinpoche decided to establish a school for impoverished nomadic children. To establish the school, Dorje Ten Rinpoche resolutely postponed his own retreat plans, overcoming every obstacle as he submitted applications through each administrative level. His aim was to lift the herders of Menthang Township from poverty and backwardness at its root, elevate the cultural literacy of their children, and revitalise education.
In 1997, Dorje Ten Rinpoche, then a member and representative of various government offices and Director of the Civil Management Committee of Menthang Monastery, took the initiative to establish Nyenpo Yutse Hope Primary School in Mentang Township. With the support of the Jiuzhi County government and through self-financed efforts, the school was formally inaugurated on August 23, 1997.
With the changing times, Dorje Ten Rinpoche noticed that in recent years, students graduating from junior and senior secondary schools in Tibet often dropped out due to poverty or other reasons. Beyond herding livestock, they had no other options. Their dropping out signifies that years of investment in education and devoted efforts by both the state and their families stand to be squandered. These youths represent the talent pool of the regions; if the knowledge they have acquired cannot be applied to practical use or cultivated into a specialised skill, it constitutes a tremendous waste.
To enable these children to become the backbone of their homeland's development, Dorje Ten Rinpoche submitted an application to the prefectural government to establish a vocational school. The authorities granted permission to establish the "Dorje Ten Ethnic Vocational School" in 2007. The school began its preparatory work in 2008. After nearly three years of approval procedures and preparatory work, thanks to the advocacy and tireless efforts of Dorje Dang Rinpoche, and thanks to the donations and assistance of compassionate people from all sectors of society, the Dorje Ten Ethnic Vocational School held its opening ceremony on August 18, 2010.
The school teaches Tibetan, Chinese, English, political science, and offers various courses focused on promoting traditional culture, including Tibetan medicine and herbalism, traditional thangka painting, ethnic costume design and tailoring, traditional ethnic music and dance, tourism services and management. More than 1,000 students have graduated from the school and hundreds of students are attending universities. The school had more than 1,300 students in 2024, but like other Tibetan-run schools, it has also faced difficulties and has been threatened with closure from the Chinese government since 2024. Dorje Ten Rinpoche was also detained for two months at the end of 2024.
Dorje Ten Rinpoche, aged 58, was born on October 25, 1967 in Menthang Township, Jigdril County (གཅིག་སྒྲིལ་རྫོང་།), Golog, in north-eastern Tibet. He became a monk at a young age and studied Buddhism at Menthang Woesel Thenchok Ling Monastery, where he later became the director. He is not only a Rinpoche, but also an educator and intellectual. He has been the director and representative of many other monasteries and organisations.
