Xinjiang govt to raise test points for mixed-race students

BEIJING: China’s fractious far-west region of Xinjiang has changed its university entrance exam rules to give children from mixed families a leg-up on other students.

Following a flare-up in violence in 2014, authorities have rolled out security measures across Xinjiang in recent years, from banning long beards and face veils to placing an estimated one million mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in camps.

Chinese officials describe the facilities as voluntary “vocational education centres” where Turkic-speaking people are taught Mandarin and job skills in a bid to steer them away from religious extremism.

Rights groups as well as former inmates see the measures as part of a campaign to assimilate Uighurs and other minorities into the country’s majority ethnic Han society.

Observers say the change in the university enrolment system is another step in that direction, particularly in a region where Uighurs made up almost half of the 23-million-strong population, according to 2015 statistics.

In an online notice posted last week, the Xinjiang government published new rules for giving bonus points to disadvantaged groups in the nationwide college entrance exams.

In a reversal of last year’s policy, the regional government doubled the number of bonus points allocated to inter-ethnic students – defined as those with one Han parent – to 20, while more than halving the amount for students whose parents are both ethnic minorities to 15. — AFP