Background Ethnographic work among high altitude populations has shown that children are highly mobile—the most recent expression of this is the educational migration of children born at high altitude to boarding schools at lower altitudes. The impact of these patterns of migration on size for age are unknown. Aim We investigated the association between growth in weight and height and educational migration in ethnic Tibetan children living in and out of their natal communities. Subjects and methods Five hundred and fifty eight children ages three to sixteen from the Nubri Valley, Nepal participated in this study. Three hundred children were living in natal villages and 258 were attending boarding schools in Kathmandu. Height, weight, and skinfold thicknesses were collected and matched to demographic data from the community. Results There was no association between altitude of family residence and size for age z‐scores. Males had lower z‐scores than females; z‐scores for both groups declined with age. Differences in size for age among children in boarding schools were associated with two factors: sex and type of boarding school (individual sponsor or group funded). Individuals attending individually sponsored schools had greater size for age compared to children in group funded schools or in their natal villages; younger children in collectively funded schools were smaller than village peers. Conclusions Despite popular perceptions, educational outmigration in Himalayan communities may not be associated with improved child growth outcomes and investment in community level schools may be a practical solution for improving child growth and physical and mental health.

This chapter documents the rural to urban migration experiences of children and adolescents from Nubri, a culturally and linguistically Tibetan enclave in the highlands in Nepal, to boarding schools in Kathmandu. The authors explore three themes through the students’ own drawings and explanations: (1) difficulties encountered when moving out of the village and into boarding schools, including separation from parents and cultural and linguistic adjustments, (2) the formation of new kin-like relationships in the institutional setting, and (3) a vision of futures rooted in professional achievement that contrasts sharply with parents’ agropastoral lifestyles, and that involve aspirations of becoming agents for development in their natal communities. The chapter contributes to educational studies in Nepal and South Asia by providing new insights into how children perceive their participation in a migration phenomenon that is driven by structural inequalities, and by exploring how education with its embedded development discourses transforms the ways youths from rural areas imagine their opportunities, social relations, and natal communities.