More than 60,000 students will graduate from Beijing colleges and universities next year, according to the city's Education Commission.

Sources said this will include over 3,400 graduates with doctoral degrees and nearly 9,000 with master's degrees, both figures slightly higher than those for this year.

Officials with the commission said the municipal government will offer more and better services for job seekers and encourage them to enter the private sector.

The government will offer preferential treatment to those graduates with the highest attainments who want to work for information technology companies in the Zhongguancun Hi-tech Park, known as "China's Silicon Valley," in northwest Beijing.

The government will also encourage graduates to become teachers and to work in outlying, underdeveloped areas of the country.