Integrated schools give students lessons in life

Integrating students from different ethnic groups in the same schools allows children to better understand and respect each other from a young age, and is also crucial to the future of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, according to a local education official.

"Urumqi used to have separate schools for Han Chinese and students from the other ethnic groups. In 2004, we started a pilot plan to merge schools and allow students equal access to better teaching resources and facilities," said Liu Jian, head of the Municipal Education Bureau in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. "We want to eliminate the invisible barriers the old system created between students from different ethnic groups."

The regional capital now has 97 mixed primary and high schools. Urumqi Senior High School was one of the first to be created under the new system. In May 2004, it was formed by the merger of Urumqi No. 6 High School (for Han Chinese students) and Urumqi No. 14 High School, which served children from other ethnic groups, mostly Uygur.