The education system in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has dramatically improved during the last four decades, said local officials contemplating the current status of the local primary and middle school system.

Since 1959, the year democratic reform was initiated in the region, the central government has invested a combined 1.3 billion yuan (US$157 million) in education development in the region, 445 million yuan (US$53.6 million) of which was used for 15 big projects during the past decade, said Lu Shicheng, a regional official involved in building schools.

So far, a six-year-schooling compulsory education system has been put into practice in 55 of the region's 73 counties, with a nine-year-schooling compulsory education implemented in 18 counties.

Computers have been introduced into more than 1,000 primary and middle schools in the region.

Currently, 360,000 students are enrolled in local primary and middle schools, which have 22,000 teachers and other faculty members.

The illiteracy rate among local adults has dropped 58 per cent since 1951 and now stands at 37 per cent. Headway has also been made in enrollment as nearly 92 per cent of local school-age children are currently registered in schools compared to less than 2 per cent half a century ago.

To protect and promote the use of the Tibetan language, Tibet, encouraged by the central government, has issued five collections of teaching materials in Tibetan for primary, middle school and higher education. For primary and middle school students alone, there are more than 50 categories of teaching materials adapted in Tibetan.

Courses offered in primary schools in villages and towns are mainly given in Tibetan, and courses in larger cities are bilingual. Teaching in middle schools and higher education institutions in Tibet is offered in Tibetan, Chinese and English.

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