About 260,000 students from China's ethnic minority areas have received education in inland provinces and municipalities since 1949 when the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded, education minister Zhou Ji Thursday said in Beijing .

Zhou said at a meeting on improving classes for students of ethnic minorities that all 55 ethnic minorities now have people who have completed college. Most of them have their own masters and PhDs.

He said that more than 70,000 Tibetan students had been admitted to inland middle schools and colleges. Inland senior high schools have enrolled 29,600 students from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Since 1985, classes specially for Tibetan students have been offered in developed inland provinces and municipalities. Xinjiang Uygur minority students have been able to attend exclusive senior high school classes since 2000.

The Tibetan and Uygur are two of China's major ethnic minorities.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2009)