This Day, That Year

Item from Sept 6, 1985, in China Daily: The government is pumping an estimated 60 million yuan into an ambitious education program for the Tibet autonomous region, where nearly 80 percent of the people cannot read or write. The program includes sending 1,300 students annually to the interior for middle school education and providing housing and book subsidies for all Tibetan middle school students to encourage parents to send their children to school.

The central government's support over the past decades has gradually lifted Tibet out of illiteracy.

By the end of 2015, the illiteracy rate among the young and middle-aged in the region was a mere 0.52 percent down from 95 percent in 1951, according to the local government.