A college in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has started a new semester of courses to train local-level officials in the Putonghua and Uyghur languages, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.

The courses, provided by the Xinjiang Education Institute, will involve two classes of 30 officials learning language skills over a six-month long semester.

Officials from the Han ethnic group took classes on the Uyghur language while Uyghur officials attended a Putonghua language class, announced Sun Houming, the head of the School of Humanities at the Xinjiang Education Institute.

The classes aim to equip officials with the basic language skills needed for daily conversation and work, and to allow them to read simple articles with the aid of dictionaries, said Sun.

The courses come against the backdrop of an increased number of terror attacks in Xinjiang and the rest of China in recent years with top leaders calling for greater understanding between China's Hans and Uyghurs.

Besides teaching language skills, experts and scholars will be invited to deliver lectures on the culture, history, lifestyle and customs of the Uyghur ethnic group.

"Through this training, I have mastered simple Uyghur and can write basic sentences. It has greatly improved the efficiency of my work dealing with local farmers," said Wang Jun, an official from Ruoqiang county in Xinjiang, who has just finished his training.

The classes started in 2010 and have provided training for 758 students so far, according to the Department of Organization of Communist Party of China Xinjiang committee.

Another official told the Global Times that although he had not attended the class, nearly all local-level officials in Xinjiang are required to take three months of language training either before or after taking their posts.

"As far as I know, every official needs to take language classes when taking a position in Xinjiang. There is also an oral test after the training session which every official is required to pass," Niu Changzhen, an official who works in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan, told the Global Times.

"The purpose is to help more local-level officials better communicate with and serve local residents," said Niu.