Students line up to get milk at the Central Primary School in Nyangpo Township of Gongbo'Gyamda County, Nyingchi, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, Sept. 4, 2024. (Xinhua/Tenzin Nyida)

Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region is now home to over 530,000 college-educated residents, according to data released during an education conference on Tuesday in the regional capital of Lhasa.

The number marks a significant increase from the figure reported during the seventh national census conducted in 2020, which showed that the region had 401,980 people with a college degree.

Data released at Tuesday's conference also showed that new additions to the labor force in the region now have an average of 13.1 years of education.

By strengthening cooperation with research institutes, universities and enterprises, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University, Xizang has established 103 regional-level platforms for scientific and technological innovation, according to the regional department of education.

In old Xizang, over 95 percent of young people were illiterate, and access to education was predominantly limited to the privileged aristocracy.

Xizang is the first provincial-level region in China to provide 15 years of publicly funded education, from kindergarten to senior high school. The compulsory education completion rate has reached 97.73 percent. Official statistics show that the region is now home to 3,472 schools of various types and levels.