Thousands of ethnic Mongolian students have taken to the streets in northern China to protest Beijing’s plan to replace the Mongolian language with Mandarin as a medium of instruction in their school classes.

Students wearing school uniforms demonstrated outside several secondary schools in Inner Mongolia and shouted slogans to demand that their classes be taught in their mother tongue, according to the U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center.

The new policy, which came into effect on Tuesday, would see the medium of instruction in ethnic minority schools in the region switch from the Mongolian language to Mandarin.

The measure has fueled fears among local Mongolians over authorities’ attempts to forcibly assimilate Mongolian culture into the dominant Han Chinese population.

A 32-year-old herder from Xilingol League told Agence France-Presse that he feared the Mongolian language would be on the brink of extinction in a few decades. He said almost every Mongolian in the Inner Mongolia region — also known as Southern Mongolia to ethnic and independence groups — was opposed to the revised curriculum.

Police and school officials in the city of Tongliao had earlier set up barricades to stop students from leaving to ensure they attended classes under the new language policy. But some managed to break the barriers and left their schools on Monday, SMHRIC said.

The protests were echoed by people and NGOs in the neighboring country of Mongolia. They rallied in the streets to urge the Chinese government to scrap the new language policy.

Elbegdorj Tsakhia, former President of Mongolia, sent out a video statement urging Beijing to respect the rights of Mongolians in China to use their native language, according to SMHRIC.

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