Attending the county's largest primary school in the 1980s, Pasang remembers, there was only a wooden threshold, not even a front gate. Desks and chairs were few; most of the students sat on stones, he says.

Pasang was occasionally given some money by his parents, but without any shops around the school, money seemed like waste paper for him.

Except for a textbook, local teachers had no tools for their task. The students had to rely on memorizing to learn language.