Boarding schools for Uyghur children are meant to assimilate and indoctrinate them
Nearly a half million children have been separated from their families and placed in boarding schools so far, according to a planning document published on a government website, and the ruling Communist Party has set a goal of operating one to two such schools in each of Xinjiang’s 800-plus townships by the end of next year.
The party has presented the schools as a way to fight poverty, arguing that they make it easier for children to attend classes if their parents live or work in remote areas or are unable to care for them. And it is true that many rural families are eager to send their children to these schools, especially when they are older.
But the schools are also designed to assimilate and indoctrinate children at an early age, away from the influence of their families, according to the planning document, published in 2017. Students are often forced to enroll because the authorities have detained their parents and other relatives, ordered them to take jobs far from home or judged them unfit guardians.
（一）立足新疆稳定全局，办好寄宿制学校。为贯彻落实习近平总书记提出的新疆社会稳定和长治久安总目标的要求,自治区立足新疆维稳全局,决定下大力气办好农村义务教育阶段寄宿制学校,推进国家通用语言文字授课,给学生创造稳定和安静的学习成长环境，最大限度地阻断家庭宗教氛围对少年儿童的影响,减少“在学校讲科学，回家听讲经，思想观念受到来回冲击”的情况发生。自治区党委提出“十三五”期间，无寄宿制中小学或不能满足寄宿需求的乡镇，至少改扩建或新建 1-2 所符合义务教育学校标准化的寄宿制中小学，扩大寄宿制学生规模。截至 2017 年初，我区有寄宿生的义务教育中小学 1303 所，占义务教育学校总数的 28.4%；义务教育阶段寄宿生 49.78 万人，占义务教育阶段在校生总数的 39.44%。
The quiet learning and growth environment can block the influence of the family’s religious atmosphere on the children to the greatest extent, and reduce the occurrence of “teaching science in school, listening to the scriptures at home, and ideological concepts being impacted back and forth”.