Tibetan dreams kept alive at city schools

Tenzin Tsedring's dream job is apt, given the Tibetan teen's studies under a program aimed at training more professionals for the underdeveloped region.

The student of a Beijing school for the Tibetan ethnic group wants to become an engineer, "preferably in the environment sector in my hometown".

"Every time I take a train back to Lhasa, I'm shocked by the garbage along the railway line. I want to do something to improve the plateau environment," she said.

Tenzin Tsedring, 16, is one of over 800 Tibetans in grades 10, 11 and 12 at Beijing Tibet High School. They have stood out from the thousands who apply each year to attend schools in big cities through an elite stream of an education program in the Tibet autonomous region that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Tenzin Tsedring feels emotionally attached to Beijing Tibet High School because it's her father's alma mater.

One of seven children from an impoverished family from the suburbs of Lhasa, her father, Wangdu, was the first person in his village to travel outside Tibet. He left home for Beijing Tibet High School in 1988, just a few years after such city schools were established by the central government exclusively for Tibetans.

After graduation, Wangdu secured a teaching job at a junior high school in Lhasa. He has sent hundreds of children to schools and universities across China, with most returning to Tibet after graduation.

Of the 32,000 Tibetans who have studied in cities over the past three decades, some 90 percent have returned home after completing their studies.