nationalities institutes and ethnic minority classes run by common institutions of higher learning.
        The boarding school is a principal form of education in pastoral and mountainous areas inhabited by ethnic minority people. At such schools, board and lodging expenses are borne by the government. Ethnic minority classes set up especially for ethnic minority students in ordinary schools are another form of education. They include ethnic minority classes in general institutions of higher learning, EM classes in secondary technical schools and EM classes in primary and middle schools. EM classes are generally offered by local key schools or key schools in other provinces or regions. Students for such classes usually have board and lodging in their schools, and enjoy scholarships or tuition reduction or waiver. Students who are especially difficult financially are given monthly allowances. When serving areas inhabited by ethnic minority people, EM classes in secondary technical schools and colleges (preparatory, specialized and undergraduate studies) generally have "fixed orientations" in enrollment, training and job assignment for graduates. That is to say, students go back where they come from upon graduation with his or her training geared toward a prescribed field.
        The college preparatory class is a special channel

through which ethnic minority people get the opportunity to receive higher education. Students for such classes are selected from among those of ethnic minority origin who have passed college entrance examinations of the same year. At the preparatory stage, students mainly warm up senior middle school lessons for a year before being enrolled for college education if they pass a qualification test. The first batch of preparatory classes for ethnic minority students were started in 1980 in five universities directly under the Ministry of Education including Peking University and Tsinghua University. At present, close to 100 institutions of higher learning offer such classes. In the field of higher education, the state has also established comprehensive schools devoted to training people for ethnic minorities called nationalities institutes. Such institutes provide both undergraduate education and adult education; they offer not only branches of learning found in general institutions of higher learning but also special disciplines such as ethnic minority languages, ethnology, EM history, EM architecture, EM medicine and EM art.