Boost for number of Tibetan college students

LHASA - The government is planning to increase enrollment in higher education in the Tibet autonomous region so that 30 percent of Tibetan students will enter college by 2015, local officials said on Monday.

Tibet's current college enrolment rate is 23.4 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 26.5 percent, according to Song Heping, head of the regional government's education department.

The government has earmarked 3 billion yuan ($462 million) for boosting enrollment and development in Tibet's six higher education institutes between 2011 and 2015, Song said.

One-third of the funds will be invested in infrastructure, while the rest will be used to improve the quality of teaching and academic research.

More than 31,000 students, mostly ethnic Tibetans, currently study in Tibet's six universities and junior colleges. Of them, 718 are pursuing post-graduate degrees. In addition, many students from Tibet are studying in universities outside the region, officials said.

The figures, though not impressive compared with other parts of China, are remarkable for Tibet. The region did not have a single school within its borders before being peacefully liberated in 1951. Education at that time was run by the region's monasteries, with limited educational access given only to monks and officials.

Between 1951 and 2010, the central government spent more than 40 billion yuan to build educational facilities in Tibet. The region's illiteracy rate for young and middle-aged people has fallen from 95 percent to 1.2 percent over the last six decades, according to a white paper issued by the State Council Information Office in July.

While the government's main focus has been on primary and secondary education, higher education is about to receive a major boost.

The government will help Tibet University, the region's top university, to grow into an internationally-recognized university, officials said.

"The school is not yet a leading university in China, but is becoming one," said Professor Tubdain Kaizhub, head of the university's economics and management department.

The professor, who has been working at the university since 1985, described the changes that have taken place in Tibetan higher education over the past two decades as "tremendous."

He said that when the university's economics and management department was founded in 1987, there were fewer than 100 students enrolled in the department, and only 10 teachers were available to instruct them. Today, the department has more than 800 students.

About 90 percent of the university's graduates stay in Tibet to work, the professor said. "As Tibet is in its prime time for development, I'm confident that the demand for college-educated workers will keep growing," he said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 07/20/2011 page3)