The provincial government of southwestern Sichuan spent 300
million yuan (US$37 million) in each of the past five years on a
program to ensure compulsory and free nine-year schooling in its
autonomous Tibetan, Yi, and Qiang ethnic prefectures.
The government launched the nine-year schooling promotion
program in 2001 aiming to let every seven-year old child from the
province's ethnic group habitats go to school instead of
shepherding sheep or yaks. Total investment in the program was
estimated at 3 billion yuan (US$370 million) for the 10-year
term.
Over the past five years, the central and the provincial
governments have invested 574 million yuan (US$70.8 million) in the
Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to promote legal nine-year
compulsory schooling. Apart from that, the local governments have
invested tens of millions yuan to that effect.
According to Tang Yongsheng, head of the Ganzi prefecture
education authority, nine-year compulsory schooling has been
realized in nine out of 18 counties in Ganzi, covering 53.56
percent of the prefecture's total population of less than one
million.
Education facilities have been improved in the past five years
in the three autonomous prefectures.
Ganzi High School, one of the best schools in Sichuan Province,
received a total fund of over 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) from
the above-mentioned program in addition to funds from universities
and international organizations, said Garong Yongzhong, principal
of the school.
In comparison, all the three autonomous prefectures in Sichuan
received only two million yuan (US$246,609) a year before the
program was launched.
With subsidies for textbooks and food, schooling has come to be
virtually free.
A lodging school has been established in Litang County of Ganzi
that now has 1,025 students, including some kids that have
registered in lama temples.
Cai Jiangkang, headmaster of the school, said more and more
people in Tibet are willing to send their children to schools.
(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2005)