The Inner Mongolia region in China is on a drive to hire 300 Chinese-language teachers across the country, in a mass recruitment attempt that has raised alarm among ethnic Mongols, a news report says.

One Mongolian scholar expressed worries that the nationwide nature of the exercise meant schools would be hiring Han people, shutting out ethnic Mongolian teachers in the process, in order to teach the Chinese language.

The latest initiative came after the regional government launched a dual-language teaching scheme on Sept. 1 specifying that from primary one and secondary one, students at ethnic schools must receive education in the Chinese language. The new scheme brought forward existing arrangements by two years and sparked protests and strikes by tens of thousands of ethnic Mongols.

Following weeks of civil unrest, four departments of the regional government recently issued a new document to engage 300 “special teachers” below 35 years old who were holders of a bachelor’s degree or above and had proof of good results in political lessons, Radio Free Asia reported. Authorities would hold a written test for candidates on Dec. 12 and announce the results on Dec. 19.

The new move was aimed at further erasing the teaching of ethnic Mongolian education in their mother tongue, said Oghonos Chogtu, an Ordos-born, Japan-based scholar. He told RFA that the newly recruited Han Chinese teachers would replace ethnic Mongol teachers.

He also expected that the hiring would not stop at 300, and would expand gradually.

Since the protests started in September, 70 protesters have gone missing, according to ethnic Mongolian Nomin, who lives in the United States. Local officials were fired after they refused to support the Chinese government’s new policy, with seven of them being chained as they were brought to the police.

The government was trying to monitor and eavesdrop on every journalist who tried to go to the region, Nomin said.

A third Mongolian scholar, Khereid Khuvisgalt, said that ethnic Mongols were afraid of discussing politics on social media WeChat, as they would be warned or arrested immediately if they talked about language issues. Khereid Khuvisgalt, an exiled activist based in Japan, added that parents’ groups on WeChat were required to include an auxiliary police officer in their chats.

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