DELICIOUS FOOD: Pupils having lunch in the school Canteen at teh Ethnic Boarding Primary School of Gonghe County (PAN XIAOQIAO)

Ji Caiben is a Tibetan pupil in the third grade at the Ethnic Boarding Primary School of Gonghe County. He is having lunch with his classmates in the school's canteen, where they are provided with meals free of charge three times a day. For today's lunch, they are enjoying sweet Tibetan style rice. Every week, the school offers more than 20 kinds of food.

There are 57 students in his class, with almost half of them being Han and the other half Tibetan.

"I don't think we are any different, as we have classes and play together. I think I'm now doing better at Chinese than Tibetan language in my exams", he smiled shyly. "I love to stay at school, and I'm the champion of running in Grade 3 and I hope to be a runner when I grow up".

Living in a remote pastoral area, it takes more than an hour for Ji to get back home from school, so like most of his classmates from the pastoral areas, he has come to this state-run boarding school, and only goes home at the end of every month to see his family.

Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province is home to 27 ethnic groups, including Tibetan, Mongolian, Han and Hui. Tibetans in particular account for 65 percent of the total population in the prefecture.

As many of them live in remote pastoral areas lacking education resources, the local government chose to reduce the original 372 primary and middle schools into 66 in 2005, helping 38,000 students in remote areas relocated to towns with better education facilities.

Striking features

Every year, the local government offers a subsidy of 2,000 yuan ($333) to every student attending Ji's school and the students' parents only need to pay 500 yuan ($83).

The school offers two models for classes. Under the first model, everything is in the Tibetan language, with the exception of the Chinese class, while in the second model, everything is taught in Chinese with the exception of Tibetan. Starting in Grade 3, like all pupils across the country, the students at the boarding school have to take English too.