LHASA, March 5 -- Nearly 18,000 students from southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region attended school in developed eastern cities in 2014, 70 percent of whom came from farming and herding families, education authorities said.

Most of the nearly 15,000 high school and 3,000 vocational school students were of Tibetan ethnicity or from other minority groups, said Ma Shengchang, the region's education department head, at an annual educational work conference held earlier this week.

"I saw the sea for the first time, and the winter here is not cold at all. I'm having a great time with my classmates and teachers," said 13-year-old Dechen from the prefecture of Nagqu. He was recruited by a class primarily reserved for Tibetan students in the coastal city of Zhuhai, Guangdong Province in southern China.

China has sent Tibetan students to study at high schools in eastern cities since 1985 in the hopes of training more professionals for the underdeveloped plateau region and boosting Tibet's development.

Currently, 21 provinces and cities have schools with classes for students from Tibet.