Education

　　Education System. In Old Tibet, with the exception of schools within the monasteries and government-run schools for children of aristocrats and monk officials, there were no schools in the modern sense. More than 90 percent of the population was illiterate or semi-literate. Today an educa-tional system comprising pre-school, primary, secondary and specialized secondary education as well as polytechnic, voca-tional and adult education and TV classes is basically in plac-e. Currently, 78.2 percent of school age children attend schoo-1. By 1998 there were 4,361 schools at all levels in Tibet. They included four schools of higher learning-Tibet Uni-versity, Tibet Institute for Ethnic Minorities, Tibet College of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, and Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine. These schools of higher learning enrolled 3,447 students in 1998, including 1,342 female students. In addition, there were 16 secondary schools specialized in edu-cation, agriculture and animal husbandry, finance and econ-omics, sports, arts, post and telecommunications, over 90 or-dinary middle schools, and 4,251 primary schools (village primary schools included). They employed 19,000 teachers and enrolled 359,000 students. About 81.3 percent of the school age children attended school, and the majority of them are children of Tibetan or other ethnic minorities. The region has set up more than 100 specialized secondary schools at-tended by 13,000 Tibetan students in 26 provinces and mun-icipalities directly under the Central Government in China.
　　The government has substantially increased investment in modern schools since the 1980s. Many policies providing special treatment or material benefits have been imple-mented. These include government-paid education for ethnic Tibetan students from primary school through college, a pol-icy of supplying food, clothing and accommodation free of charge to some ethnic Tibetan primary and secondary stu-dents and the use of boarding schools in rural areas, a student grant and scholarship system which is step by step being put in place at primary and secondary schools above the township level; schools of all types and at all levels drawing the bulk of their student body from the local ethnic people, and ethnic Tibetans and other local minority peoples receiving priority in enrollment at colleges and secondary specialized schools; teachers from more developed areas in China being dispat-ched to Tibet to work where they are needed to lurther edu-cation; and Tibetan secondary schools and Tibetan classes within other schools being opened elsewhere in China where conditions for education are comparatively better with speci-al treatment given to Tibetan students in their studies and their living conditions. The government has also given sup-port and attention to setting up specialized schools, depart-ments, and courses dealing with Tibetan language, medicine, art, history and other aspects of Tibetan culture. Statistics show in the 40 years from 1959 to 1998, Tibet had churned out 16,384 university and college graduates, 136,126 middle school graduates, 28,480 secondary specialized school gra-duates, and 266,315 primary school graduates.
　　Teaching in the Tibetan Language Stressed. Most in-stmction in the majority of primary schools in Tibet is given in Tibetan. Teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry above the junior middle school level in Tibetan will require a period of perpetration until necessary conditions, such as finding qualified teachers and the compilation and translation of teaching materials, are met. Accordingly, classes above the junior middle school level are currently taught using four formats: first, offering courses in Tibetan and Chinese lan-guages, with all other courses being taught in Tibetan; sec-ond, teaching some classes in Chinese and some in Tibetan; third, offering a course in Tibetan language with the rest of the courses being taught in Chinese; fourth, teaching the en-tire curriculum in Chinese. Primary and secondary education in Tibet trains students to meet the requirement that they master both Tibetan and Chinese before they graduate from senior middle school. Classes in foreign languages are of-fered at the junior middle school level and above in schools with the proper conditions. In Tibetan-operated secondary schools and Tibetan classes in other schools elsewhere in China, Tibetan language courses taught by Tibetan teachers are uniformly provided during junior middle school. Teach-ers independently plan their courses according to the com-mon syllabi for the nation's ordinary high schools, at the same time making allowances for their Tibetan students' actual circumstances.
　　Institute of Buddhism. The regional government fun-ded the Institute of Buddhism provides instruction in the Buddhist sutras and other works and religious history by fa-mous Living Buddhas and Buddhist scholars. All major mon-asteries have classes studying sutras. In addition, each year a number of fairly large scale expositions and debates on the Buddhist doctrines are arranged. Some of the larger monas-teries have the capacity to cut blocks and print sutras. There is the China Tibetan Language Senior College of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing.