Tsering Junme(1945-)Educational Trailblazer on the Plateau.docVIP

Tsering Junme(1945-)Educational Trailblazer on the Plateau 　　His wedding ceremony in a classroom at Beijing Normal University at the end of 1971 was different from most in a time when newly-weds bowed to an image of Chairman Mao， holding Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong in their hands. Tsering Junme’s union was more like a party， with families and friends from several ethnic groups， including Tibetan， Han， Uygur， Yao， and Kazak， singing and dancing. Tsering and his bride， Zhang Tingfang， expressed their gratitude by joining the celebration. 　　Born in 1945 to an aristocratic family in Lhasa， Tsering Junme studied at the Department of Education at Beijing Normal University， where he met his wife， who was student in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the same time. The couple was the legend of three “firsts” in the history of the university until December 2014 when Tsering passed away. 　　He was the first student from Tibet， they were the first pair of graduates who chose to work in Tibet， and she was the first female graduate from Beijing to commit the rest of her life to the development of Tibet. 　　In 1972， he vowed to work in Tibet soon after graduation， where he could contribute his bilingual language skills ?C Mandarin and Tibetan ?C to the local educational system. Such a job was not easy to find because it didn’t exist. 　　Today， it takes some 40 hours on a comfortable train to get from Beijing to Lhasa. In those days， the trip took 15 days： They first transferred at Xining， Qinghai Province， and then took a bus along the bumpy Qinghai-Tibet Highway. 　　Statistics show that during the 1950s， the literacy rate in the Tibet Autonomous Region was only 5 percent of the total population. Only families within a small plutocracy could afford to send their boys to school. 　　After settling in Lhasa， Tsering was dispatched to Tibet Normal School， which was founded in 1961 with less than 300 students. Only two other schools provided secondary e