BEIJING, April 22 (AFP) - The University of Tibet has started an "anti-separatist course" for professors and students aimed at discrediting the ideas of the Dalai Lamai, according to the Tibet Daily.

The two-month course will include "lectures, theory lessons and discussions, aimed at guiding the thoughts of professors and students," the Daily said in an edition received here Tuesday.

The course was launched on April 10 by Shen Kaiyun, vice-director of Tibet's propaganda department, who denounced the "collusion between supporters of independence in Tibet and Taiwan."

The Dalai Lama visited Taiwan last month on a trip roundly condemned by Beijing, which regards both the spiritual leader and the Taiwanese government as subversive separatists.

Shun also accused the Dalai Lama of being "the instrument of anti-Chinese forces abroad."

"We must study ways of minimalising the influence of the Dalai Lama," who fled Tibet after a failed uprising against the Chinese army in 1959.

A meeting has also been held in Lhasa, the regional capital, to discuss the necessity of "inculcating patriotism" in primary and secondary schools in Tibet, the daily said.

Officials of the propaganda department, the media and education decided at the meeting to coordinate the "dissemination of patriotic songs, books and films" that promote "national unity," the daily said.

China has renewed its propaganda campaign against the spiritual leader since his Taiwan trip, launching almost daily official tirades against the 1989 Nobel peace prize winner.

The Dalai Lama is currently in the United States on a tour which has already taken him to Spain and France.