The University of Bern, the last academic institution in Switzerland to offer courses in Tibetology, plans to shut down its Tibetan culture and classical language classes from the fall semester of this year, following several decades of instruction, the Swiss newspaper Le Temps has reported. The decision has been met with expressions of dismay from scholars and the Tibetan community in Switzerland.
The university explained that the move comes as a professorship reached the end of its term, coupled with a reorganization of the Faculty of History and Philosophy—including the Department of Religious Studies which encompasses Tibetology.
“It was found that the number of students for the specialization in Asian religions, particularly in Mongolia and Tibet, was very low,” the university’s head of communications, Nathalie Matter, was quoted as saying, adding that the difficulty of learning these languages had “a deterrent effect” on prospective students. (Le Temps)
Matter explained that the professorship would be reoriented toward “empirical” research in religious studies with “a link to the present and relevance to society,” based on an external evaluation, in order to respond to scientific considerations and interest among students. “We can expect good attendance in the adapted course, which will no longer require compulsory language skills,” she added. (Le Temps)
The university noted that the “history of ideas of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism” would remain “an important pillar of the field of religious studies.” (Le Temps)
The university’s lecturer in Tibetology, Prof. Yannick Laurent, who spent 10 years living with Tibetan communities in India and Tibet, expressed regret over the decision, observing that Switzerland had, since the 1960s, been the principal host in the West for the Tibetan community in exile. (Le Temps)
Prof. Laurent remarked that the number of students had been stable at between five and 10 per year for 8–10 hours of classes per week, which he said was comparable to other European universities.
He also noted that Tibetan and Himalayan studies were “booming” elsewhere in the world, partly because of their interdisciplinary characteristics at the intersection of language learning, religious studies, ethnology, geography, and history. He cited Harvard University as an example, with two professors of Tibetology, and added that the European Research Council financed five projects devoted to Tibetan studies.
Prof. Laurent expressed hope that concerned foundations might be willing to fund a new Tibetology chair at a Swiss university—something relatively rare in Switzerland.
Members of Switzerland’s Tibetan community also expressed dismay over the decision.
“In view of the large Tibetan community in Switzerland, the end of these study programs is very regrettable,” said the president of the Tibetan Community in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Drongpatsang Ngedun Gyatso. He added that the Tibet Institute Rikon—a Tibetan monastery in northern Switzerland’s Töss Valley, inaugurated in 1968 and the only monastery outside of Asia to be founded on behalf of His Holiness the Dalai Lama—only provided religious instruction and could not replace a university education. (Le Temps)
Members of the Tibetan diaspora have lived in Switzerland since the 1960s. The community is the largest in Europe, numbering more than 4,000 in 2011 and 8,000 in 2018.
Le Temp also highlighted that the university’s decision came amid a broader geopolitical trend that had seen the Chinese authorities ban the use of the term “Tibet” domestically, in favor of the official Chinese name “Xizang.” Some institutions outside of China have also come under pressure to reflect the change. In France, museums such as the Guimet and Quai Branly have replaced “Tibet” with “Xizang Autonomous Region” in their catalogs, while the British Museum followed suit in 2024. “I haven’t seen this happening in Switzerland yet,” said Prof. Laurent. (Le Temps)
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Clap de fin pour la tibétologie en Suisse (Le Temps)
Tibetan Studies Group – University of Bern (Facebook)
University of Bern
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