"Education should start with children," as Deng Xiaoping put it when he talked of the issue of education. What Deng Xiaoping said still rings true to this day whenever primary education comes up as a topic. How to educate the children, particularly in remote areas where primary education is weak, like the Tibet Autonomous Region, has always been to the Communist Party of China and the state a matter deserving the highest level of attention.

Before Tibet was liberated, education took place mainly in temples, which made it necessary for anyone wanting to learn something to become a lama. Some private schools were established in Lhasa during the late years of the Qing Dynasty and under Chinese Nationalist Party rule, but no children of the Tibetan people, who consisted mostly of ordinary farmers, were allowed to go to school except for those of the nobility. After Tibet was liberated, education enjoyed rapid growth in Lhasa, thanks in large part to a policy that demanded no food, lodging, or tuition from any student (hereinafter referred to as the "three-no policy"), and the enrollment ratio soared. It is fair to say that significant improvements were made in primary education over what it had been before the liberation.

In recent years, Lhasa has been actively devising educational reforms and building or expanding modern kindergartens and primary schools while implementing various national educational policies, and has implemented the three-no policy across the system, from kindergarten to senior high school, thus enabling the children from all ethnic groups in Lhasa to fully enjoy benefits brought about by educational improvements.

Mimaciren is a student at the Primary School of Geda Township in Damxung County, and his parents are ordinary farmers and herdsmen. With the help of the three-no policy, Mimaciren can enjoy primary education free of charge. "Thanks to the three-no policy my family is not burdened with educational costs anymore. Since the spring of 2012, the city has given a nutritional-improvement subsidy of RMB3 to every student, about which my family is very glad. Now we can spend more money on improving our life, and if circumstances permit, I hope he will be able to go to college in a big city." Mimaciren's mother Ni Zhen appeared relaxed and confident when speaking of his child's education.

"Education is a vital task for generations to come. As Lhasa is at present entering an important stage in its drive to become a well-off city and make major leaps in its socioeconomic development, the significance and urgency of speeding up education are becoming more and more apparent," said Qi Zhala, secretary of the Municipal Party Secretary of Lhasa and the leader who are now guiding the city to major developmental leaps. He hopes that educational reforms will help the educational system of Lhasa to develop better and more quickly.

In January 2012, the Municipal Party Committee of Lhasa issued the Opinion on the Speeding up of Educational Reforms and Development, its first document of the year, which places education among industries to give priority to in the city's overall development plan. Implementing that document, Lhasa issued the Three-Year Action Plan for Improving Educational Quality, and sped up the adjustment of the makeup of its school system, preliminarily resulting in a new version wherein kindergartens, primary schools, junior high schools, and senior high and occupational schools operate on the village, township, county, and city levels, respectively. As its next move, Lhasa will strengthen its effort to build government-run kindergartens, each designed to serve children in their vicinity, with a view to ensuring that a kindergarten exists every 5 kilometers within the urban area and that there are kindergartens in its rural areas.