Abstract: The late Qing Dynasty is the first period to develop modern education in frontier ethnic areas for Chinese government. During the period, the target for the Qing Dynasty to develop ethnic education was mainly for the stability of frontier political situation and the consolidation of regime governance. Meanwhile, Due to the effect of the traditional governance of border areas and the regime of the middle eastern areas, the Qing government paid more attention to develop ethnic education towards the frontier areas-Mongolia, XinJiang and Tibet, and published various kinds of policies concerning ethnic education in a top-down way. However, in the whole period, the Qing government put extra emphasis on developing language education, primary education and industrial education and ignored other kinds of languages. Besides, the top-level design was comparatively weak and some ethnic education policies were not suitable for the frontier reality. Thus, the development of Chinese ethnic education becomes obstructive and difficult because of the problems in the late of Qing Dynasty.