By Susanne Goldenberg

The Guardian

29 August 1995

HIS MOTHER shook him awake, handed him a small pack, and then said goodbye maybe forever. He was 10 years old. Pasang Tsering spent the next two months on the run from the Chinese authorities travelling mainly at night before crossing the Himalayas into India. Now 14 he thinks back on his flight from Tibet in 1992 as the scariest time of his life. He nearly didn't make it.

"When we reached the border, some of the Nepalese soldiers caught us and sent us back to Tibet. Then we hid in the jungle. Our leader found us a Sherpa guide and we walked for four or five days in the jungle, always at night."

Pasang's story is far from rare in Dharamsala, a summer resort in the Indian Himalayas that is the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Since 1990, about 300 Tibetan children have arrived in the town each year, crossing the mountains on foot and during the freezing winters when the Chinese border guards stay inside their huts - in search of an education.

Most end up at the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV), a Tibetan-run residential school a few miles from the town. The school was founded more than 30 years ago for orphans of the failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. These days, fewer than one third of the 2,485 students are descended from those original refugees - the rest are recent arrivals from Tibet.

At 32 per cent, the literacy rate in Tibet is the lowest in China. Only five to 10 per cent of Tibetans go beyond primary school, in part because the language of instruction is Mandarin. In many rural areas there are no schools at all.

Pasang was studying at a primary school in Lhasa, but his parents were reluctant for him to continue. "From class six most of the students are sent to China, or else they are made to study in Chinese, but my parents did not want that," he says.

The only alternative was to smuggle him out. Pema Dorjee, the director of the TCV, says parents are so desperate to secure the future of their children - as well as their culture - that they are willing to accept years of separation.

"The main reason is that there is so much discrimination between Chinese and Tibetans, Tibetans don't have much of a future. Of course there are schools in Tibet but they are not very good and they can't get a Tibetan education. If they come here they can go for further studies. They can get information about the outside world."

Until the Chinese occupation, the way of life for many Tibetans had not changed for centuries. Exile in 1959 brought exposure to the modern world, and the Dalai Lama declared education a priority. The Delhi government and the Tibetans set up schools in refugee settlements scattered all over India. The result are paying off in the second generation of exile.

About 90 per cent of the 80,000 Tibetan refugees in India go to school, and half of the children at the TCV go on to college or university. The school has also contributed to a cultural revival. Scholars began translating text books into Tibetan in 1987, and pupils do all subjects in the language until secondary school, when they switch to English.

MANY OF the would be pupils are outside the usual school age. Some, such as Chantok, aged 17, who arrived from Tibet a few days before, have never been to school. On a cot at the refugee hostel, she pores eagerly over a picture book on Tibet, Land Of Snows. She has never learnt how to read.

Others are infants. One of the cottages at the TCV is lined with cribs for the two dozen babies that have been left in its care. Mr Dorjee says some women travel from Tibet to India just to give birth. The TCV then takes care of the infants right through until after they finish university.

Tibetan officials in India say the journey recently has become even more dangerous. Nepal has come under growing pressure from Beijing not to let in any more refugees. In May and June, the Nepali authorities handed over 65 refugees to the Chinese authorities.

In September last year, the Chinese authorities struck with another decree, warning that parents of children studying in India could lose their jobs. Thirty-one children returned to China earlier this year, amid emotional scenes.

But although Mr Dorjee is pleased at the expansion of his school, he admits it is struggling to cope. The cottages are so crowded that some students are sleeping two to a bunk bed, and the school is appealing to aid agencies as well as individuals to sponsor a child from school through university.