When the school bell rings, Namser, a 15-year-old Tibetan boy, steps out of his classroom while humming a Tibetan song, with a textbook in his hand.

Shiran Phyuco, 12, from a grassland of Chengdo County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, stydies in a school in Qingshuihe Township of the county.

Namser comes from Qumacai County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province's Sanjiangyuan area, dubbed as the "water tower of China."

Located at an average altitude of above 4,500 m, the county features a harsh environment, poor infrastructure, and backward education.

Four years ago, subsidized by the local government and a student organization, the boy and 125 other children left their pastoral hometown and began a new study life in the No. 28 Middle School of Xining, capital of the province.

"I was so excited when coming to this city for the first time. It's pretty good here. I've never seen such a beautiful school and so tall buildings," he said, adding: "Schools in my hometown are small, with old and shabby desks and chairs."

After the passage of four years, still vivid in his mind is the scene that Grandma was dressed in a thick traditional gown standing in front of a tent, waiting for him to return home.

"It seems as if I played with my elder brother on a grassland and picked up cattle dung for fuel yesterday," Recalling his past life, Namser, in grade eight, smiled.

Photo shows Moco, a Tibetan girl migrating from Sanjiangyuan area, listening to a class.

Soon after entering the new school, the Tibetan boy was fascinated by football. "My idol is Cristiano Ronaldo from the Real Madrid!"

At computer classes, he learnt how to surf the Internet. "My farthest net friend lives in Beijing. I want to visit him as well as the Great Wall and the Imperial Palace after I grow up."

Namser's classmate Gelhai Como, 16, began to use skin-care products like other girls. "I hope to become a stewardess and thus I can travel to Korea and Britain," said Como, who has an excellent academic record in every course especially in English.

According to teacher Jiang Shan, at the beginning, almost all these new comers from pastoral areas could not speak mandarin or understand what their teachers taught in the Han language. So the school opened classes in the Tibetan language for them, so that they made remarkable progress with the help of their teachers and classmates.

In 2004, Kelzang Dorje and his parents migrated to Tanggula Township in the suburbs of Golmud, the second largest city in Qinghai, with other 127 families during the ecological migration campaign.

Tibetan students migrating from pastoral areas of Sanjiangyuan study computer in the No. 1 Middle School of Ledu County, Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Now, besides the subsidy from the government, the family depends on Dorje's father Tsering Nemai, who specializes in carving Mani stones (stone plates, rocks or pebbles, inscribed with the mantra of six syllable, namely, om mani padme hum).

Talking about the migration, the whole family did not regret moving. "My child would have herded sheep if we had lived in the former place. Illiterate, he would have been a shepherd all his life," Dorje's mother Gaco said.

"Transportation here is much more convenient and we no longer have to take a long way to visit a doctor far away," she added.

Dorje is studying in grade six in a primary school. It takes only a five-minute-walk from his home to the school. At the age of 17, he looked a little bit embarrassed. However, his case is common in his village.

"It is to enable our children to enjoy better education that many families have moved here from their pastures," said Lhamar, deputy head of the town.

As the Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened to traffic in 2006, Dorje noted that he hopes to revisit his hometown by train and ride a yak on the vast grassland once more.