Pangboche School

Sir Edmund Hillary built a school at Pangboche in 1963, in the same school-building expedition that put up a school at Thame. World Book donated the US$52,000 that funded the trip. Pangboche sits two hours' walk up the valley from Tengboche Monastery, on the main route to Everest, and was then one of the poorest villages in the Khumbu.

Sir Ed had no money that year to build a school in neighbouring Phortse, a village he had a soft spot for because so many of its men climbed on Makalu. Instead, he rented a large house in Pangboche and turned it into a hostel, so Phortse's children could board there and go to school alongside Pangboche's own pupils. The Pangboche school ran for more than sixty years before merging into Khumjung Secondary School in 2025.