Gatuo Texiu said there's nothing wrong with demanding that a monk love his own country.
"Every country has such requirements for its religious believers. As a monk, we should strictly obey the disciplines and learn to be a good citizen first," Gatuo Texiu told the Global Times.
The students say the college has never taught them about the exiled Dalai Lama but they were told to stay away from separatist content or people with malicious intentions from time to time.
Xirao Duojia, a Chi Ram Pa program graduate from Yanduo Temple in Chaya county in the Tibet Autonomous Region, said that his two years of study in HTBCC have been worthwhile.
"I don't think patriotism is instilled into us. The principles of unity, harmony and justice are consistent with the doctrines of Buddhism," he said.
He believed that the college has offered him a sound environment to study and expand his horizons.
"The Buddhist teachers are excellent. Here, I can communicate with monks from other temples and sects and make friends with them," he said.
Value of the certificates
The certificates are an official recognition of the monks' high degree of education and diligence. For some students, they are also a means to get promoted.
According to Luosang Jinmei, who has worked in the HTBCC for more than 24 years, right now the remuneration for monks who have achieved the Tho Ram Pa or Chi Ram Pa differs from area to area.
"Some places will put them in more important positions, such as on a political advisory body or the temple's management committee," he said.
But in other places, the changes the certificate brings are small, he revealed, adding that the college is cooperating with local religious authorities to use graduates as a talent pool for senior religious managers.
"Based on the responses we have received from local temples and authorities, the graduates from our college perform well in their duties," said Luosang Jinmei.
But for Gatuo Texiu, with his Tho Ram Pa certificate, the best thing about holding the qualification is that he can hold large-scale religious assemblies at which he can preach doctrines and knowledge. When he didn't have the certificate, the government wouldn't grant him a permission to hold such assemblies.
Monks getting a higher-level certificate is a trend at the moment, he said. "This high academic degree is recognition of my knowledge. With it, I'm able to preach doctrines convincingly."
But he says he also hopes the authorities and temples make better use of them so that they can play a larger role in religious life.
Jiasacang, a Living Buddha and chairman of the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Buddhist Association, said the significance of the certificates needs to be recognized more widely.
"Many certificate holders didn't receive better treatment. The certificate didn't win them respect when they go back to their temples," Jiasacang, who was invited by the college to help assess the Chi Ram Pa exams, told the Global Times.
"Ordinary Buddhists have more respect for monks who are accredited through the traditional way in temples," he said.
Traditional or government-run
There's a long history of Tibetan Buddhist temples offering monks education in topics ranging from medicine, painting and sculpture to the sciences, and internal educational systems for monks to reach higher degrees and become learned lamas or abbots have been around for a long time.
But during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), some temples and educational institutions were shut down and the system was fractured, according to Han Fangming, chairman of The Charhar Institute, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.
In 1980s, several Tibetan Buddhist colleges were officially established by the government. In 2005, the Geshe Lha Ram Pa, traditionally the highest academic title issued to the most learned lama at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, was reinstated.
But the degree is only issued to Gelug sect monks who hold a Tibet-region household registration, said Tsering Thar, professor with the College for Tibetan Studies at the Minzu University of China. This has led to monks of other sects or those who are not from Tibet, who have no other options, to seek education overseas,
"They have become the targets of the separatism forces to implant separatist thoughts," Thar said in an article collected in a book published by the United Front Work Department of Qinghai in December 2014.
"These monks are always the most intelligent and ambitious, and most of them are already influential in their temples. If they accept adverse propaganda, it's easy for them to be a source of instability in Tibetan areas," he said.
The government-run colleges can be a solution to this problem. Thar said the central government is promoting the construction of religious colleges and has allocated funds to build new facilities.
The Gansu Daily reported that the new campus of the Gansu Tibetan Buddhism College is under construction on the Sangke Grassland in eastern Qinghai.
After its completion, there will be eight official Tibetan Buddhism colleges in China, including four provincial-level schools with one each in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan and three prefecture-level institutions in Yunnan's Diqing, Sichuan's Ganzi and Qinghai's Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefectures.
