College Graduates Encouraged to 'Go West'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, June 11, 2003

College Graduates Encouraged to 'Go West'

China launched a program Tuesday to recruit up to 6,000 young volunteers from college graduates to move to the west of the country and help develop impoverished regions.

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China launched a program Tuesday to recruit up to 6,000 young volunteers from college graduates to move to the west of the country and help develop impoverished regions.

The program was jointly announced by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) and the Ministry of Education.

Beginning this year, volunteers would be recruited and selected from among college graduates to serve in the western regions on a regular basis every year, said Zhao Yong, a member of the Secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee.

The graduates would be sent to impoverished western regions to work in such fields as education, health, agricultural science, poverty reduction, and youth work management for one or two years once they passed necessary evaluations, Zhao said.

After their volunteer terms, graduates would be free to choose whether to continue to work in the west or seek chances in other developed regions of the country, he said.

"As a measure to serve the western development strategy, the program has found a new way to provide intellectual support for the western regions," Zhao said.

The western regions are badly in need of skills as professionals there account for only 15.5 percent of the country'stotal, while the population accounts for 28.8 percent of China's population.

"The new program will not only push forward the development of various businesses in the west, but create new employment opportunities for college graduates," Zhao said.

"A number of young talents with modern expertise, grass-roots work experience and strong social responsibility can be developed in this way," he added.

To date, 11 provinces and autonomous regions and Chongqing municipality in western China have asked for more than 30,000 volunteers, whose positions mainly focus on jobs like rural teachers, medical workers and agricultural technicians.

Officials believe they can easily recruit enough volunteers from college graduates as 2.12 million college students are graduating this year, 620,000 more than last year when Chinese institutions of higher learning began to expand student enrollments.

"College students will have to face a tough challenge in finding jobs this year with the combined influence of the increasing number of graduates and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)," said Yuan Guiren, vice minister of education.

"I'm confident that the new pioneering program will set an example for exploring new ways to obtain employment," Yuan said.

Applications for the volunteer work will be open to college graduates across the country from Tuesday to the end of June and the final list will be decided by the end of July.

The volunteers will be sent to the west according to their specialties and the demand from local institutions after they have received special training, officials said.

Volunteers participating the program will enjoy daily living subsidies from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Personnel, besides other preferential employment polices for graduates.

During the volunteer period, recipient institutions must provide free accommodation.

There are 4.27 million registered young volunteers in China. More than 4.5 billion hours of service have been provided by young people in China since 1993 when the CYLC Central Committee launched its youth volunteer campaign.

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