How deep into villages will jobless graduates go?

With no proper understanding of the job, more graduates are rushing to become village officials.

By Jin Zhu

Three years ago, Beijing became a laboratory for a national policy that sought to attract new cunguan or village officials from among university students. That year, it hired 2,000 graduates who were posted in the suburbs. Now, the policy has been implemented nationwide. But some of the pioneer hires have mixed feelings regarding the career they chose.

When dreams encounter reality

Ma Lili, 28, starts her day early as an office assistant at the Bureau of Forestry in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia.

She moved back to her hometown after less than a year as a village officer for the Beijing municipal government.

“My current salary is much less than what I received working in Beijing, not to mention the benefits,” says the International Relations major from the Communication University of China.

“But I feel more relaxed now,” she says, unwilling to trade peace of mind for the material comforts of her Beijing job.Like most college students who graduated in 2008, Ma entered a tight job market, and thus, saw the lure of an instant posting as a village officer.

There were other bonuses: obtaining the much-coveted Beijing hukou or residential registration after three years on the job; and getting priority over other applicants should she decide to work for a state-run institution.

“As a migrant student, staying in Beijing as a registered resident after graduation is definitely not easy. Being a village officer was one of the ways to mak it come true,” Ma says.

She was appointed one of Haidian District’s 40 village officials, and was sent to work in Shangzhuang Town, about 30 kilometers outside th downtown.

Although she did not possess knowledge or skills in the technological or agricultural sciences that are essential in sub-rural areas, Ma still had dreams of making a difference through her work.

Little did she know that disappointment awaited.

She soon discovered that most illage officers” became glorified assistants to village party secretaries or village committee heads; their main tasks involved drafting documents or writing speeches for their bosses, recording the minutes of eetings and creating party members’ written profiles.

After the day’s work, which included house visits, she felt hollow inside.

“I felt like a stranger there, which made me depressed,” Ma says. “Compared with my classmates, my job was the most difficult yet had the lowest pay. I could not sleep and wondered again and again if my choice was correct.”

She decided to hang on to her job and tried to win the confidence of the village residents. Gradually, she grew to understand the local economic situation and human relations; she realized being a competent village official was not easy.

“In the village, you will win the masses’ hearts if you can help lve public conflicts. Otherwise, no one pays attention to the opinion of village officials who are regarded as strangers,” Ma says.

Soon, she followed the example of other officials who chose to stay out of local conflicts.

As Ma continued to struggle with her career choice, her employers released new work policies that helped her make the big decision.

Last March, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Personnel said that when village officers’ three-year contract expires, only 20 percent of them will be rehired. The original policy guaranteed everyone job security.

“It meant that in less than four months, 80 percent of the first 2,000 village officials wo began working in 2006 would need to find a new job,” Ma says.

The news affected her morale and she reached her breaking point.

“There was so much uncertainty ahead that I couldn’t bear it. So I decided to quit,” she says.

Behind the growing recruitment program

While Ma was re-charting her career path earlier this year, the government was starting another round of recruitment of village officials.

According to the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Organization Department, it plans to employ 1,600 village officers from among 19,463 university students. The application rate was 1:12, exceeding the previous years’ 1:6.

“Many college students are most concerned with the preferential policies and almost have zero idea about what the job entails and what skills it needs. They’re owledgeable and open-minded, but lack a deep understanding of the bigger Chinese society,” says Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

A survey of graduating students conducted by Renmin University of China in 2006 showed that more than 57 percent of respondents believed a job as a village officer was a good answer to the lack of job prospects; 17 percent thought the job would provide them with good professional experiences; and 24 percent hoped to build a career and a life in the village.
“There’s no doubt that the little understanding of reality and rather high expectations will result in great disappointment among mt village officers,” Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor from Renmin University, says.

But Zhou says government officials are partly to blame. Some of them have put too much emphasis on the preferential policies, rather than the day-to-day work conditions.

Village leaders also have their own agenda that exacerbates the situation. “Since the central government initiated the move to hire college graduates to work in villages across hina, the popularity achieved by village officials has become an important target related to the achievements of local leaders,” the professor says.

The imbalanced sales pitch students hear from their elders is irresponsible and harms the government’s reputation, Zhou says.

Finding a way out and forward

Compared with the 1960s’ “educated youth” who were banished to the rural areas, the choices of the current generation of youners are heavily influenced by the desire for money and glory.

“University students born in the 1980s and 1990s simply lack vision. Their choices are driven by monetary desires,” Zhou says.

“How to help them find a wy out (of the village job) is therefore a huge reason to safeguard the policy’s continuity.

The government has now begun using its muscle to help village officials who want to make a career switch.

Ex-officers will get 10 extra points on the entrance exam for postgraduate school and they will be given priority on the queue for the civil service exams, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee announced in April.

Beginning this year, state-run institution will also allot 40 percent of their new job slots to former village officers, the committee said.

Meanwhile, Zhou says the graduates also need to think of creative ways to get out of their corner.

“For students who majored in the agricultural sciences and technology, there’s no doubt many of them have applied their knowledge on the job. They can be given subsidies or preferential policies to set  their own business,” he says.

Ma Lili, for her part, believes that village officers should be given training to handle more challenging tasks beyond writing documents and taking notes.

“Helping village officers learnskills such as financial management will give them an edge in finding other jobs in the future,” she says.