"I have witnessed daily improvement of the quality of Tibetan women and their growing status," Yexe Yangzom, a paediatrician at the No.1 People's Hospital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, said today, the International Women's Day, who is here attending the 3rd Session of the Ninth National People's Congress.

Premier Zhu Rongji urged in his government work report to seriously implement the women and children development program. "I know how important this is for the development and progress of ethnic minority women, because I myself is one of them," said Yangzom.

She graduated from a Beijing-based medical college in the 1970s and was among the first Tibetan University students after New China was founded in 1949. And now, her 25-year-old daughter, having studied for 11 years in inland areas, works at Tibet TV station.

Her daughter is only one of the many lucky Tibetan girls who have had such opportunities to study elsewhere, Yangzom said, adding that the central government sets aside special funds every year to set up Tibetan middle schools in inland areas. And approximately 20,000 students have graduated from these schools.

Yangzom often goes to inland areas for academic exchanges, and has twice been to the United States as a visiting scholar. "I would not have dreamed of this in the old days, as my ancestors were serfs." And Half the nurses and doctors in her hospital have been to inland areas for on-job training programs, she said.

Tibet is no longer plagued by epidemic diseases, with vaccination covering more than 85 of the villages, and in some areas as high as 90 percent, she said.