A proposal to send graduates for a year of military training to ease the burden on the flagging job market has been branded "absurd" by university officials.

Freshmen at Chongqing Kechuang Vocational College participate in a military training closing ceremony on the school play area on Sept 12, 2008.

Gong Xueping, a National People's Congress (NPC) deputy, had suggested extending university and higher vocational courses to five and three years respectively during a group discussion.

He said the extra "free" year would allow students more time to hunt for a job, while also helping to foster patriotism, collectivism and revolutionary heroism, as well as raise the intellectual quality of the military.

But the idea raised by the former chairman of the standing committee of Shanghai People's Congress has received fierce criticism from experts at several educational institutions.

"We cannot treat students like trash," blasted Wang Ming, a professor at Tsinghua University and member of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), in the Southern Metropolitan Daily. "It seems like we are conceiving ways of disposing of them. The idea is rather absurd."

Deng Xiuxin, president of Huazhong Agricultural University and an NPC deputy, said the idea was unrealistic because an extra year would lead to a demand for larger facilities at schools and would be a waste of China's educational resources.

In online polls and interviews, some students said they feared the move would only increase the financial pressure put on them.

Netizens agreed the best way to relieve the situation would be to create more jobs and raised questions over Gong's link between military training and patriotism. "Students that are not enlisted in the military are not soldiers, so how can one year of military training relate to modern warfare?" asked one netizen on hexun.com.

And while Peng Fuchun, a professor at Wuhan University and an NPC deputy, admitted the need to give high school students military training, he dismissed the idea of a mandatory five-year university scheme.

Zhu Qingshi, former president of University of Science and Technology of China and a fellow NPC deputy, also felt schools should be allowed to form their own policies on military training.

China adopted a five-year scheme to include the national service in the 1950s and 60s, while fresh recruits at several universities between 1989 and 1992 were also sent on 12-month schemes.

Some, such as Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, still require students to receive some military training, usually for around a month.

(China Daily March 12, 2009)