After Tibet was peacefully liberated, the CPC central committee attached great importance in the region's cause of education. The Chinese government has continuously invested nearly 10 billion yuan in the region's schools at various levels and cultivated batches of talents, which has facilitated the economic development, social progress and prosperity in the region.

Prior to liberation, there was no decent school at all. Buddhism education was the major form of education. After the liberation, the region exerted great efforts in the improvement of education. Nowadays, Tibet has turned over a new leave in education.

September 1956 found the first formal junior middle school established in Lhasa, capital-city of Tibet. By the year 1965 when the Tibet Autonomous Region was formally founded, the region registered 1,822 primary schools with 66,781 pupils on campus and four ordinary middle schools with 1,059 students.

Over the fifty years since the liberation of the region, the state has injected a grand total of 10 billion yuan in its education. From 1979 to 2000 alone, the region got 5.87 billion yuan of education fund.

By the end of 2000, the region had a total of 3,661 schools at different levels including four institutes of higher learning, 12 secondary vocational schools, 98 ordinary middle schools, 842 primary schools and 2,715 other types of schools. The college students come to 5,400, vocational school students numbering 6,500, senior high school students of 12,000, junior middle school students of 43,000 and pupils in primary schools of 313,000.

Six-year compulsory education has been popularized in 327 counties with two of them realized nine-year education.

Considerable progress has been achieved through years of endeavor. The region is now working out a further strategy for the development of education to cater to the needs of China's development in the western region.

(People's Daily 04/29/2001)