It might have been too idealistic to associate the future of a university graduate with the development of a rural village two decades ago when the number of graduates could not even meet the needs of various institutions, enterprises and government departments in urban areas.

But such an association was not only close to reality but also increasingly practical when some local governments started to recruit college graduates to work as village heads or assistants two years ago.

The decision now to recruit as many as 100,000 university graduates in five years to work as village heads should be lauded as a move good for both the training of these young people and the construction of the new countryside.

The scheme was revealed over the weekend at a meeting jointly convened by the ministries of education, human resources and social security, as well as the organizational department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Redundancy of graduates with higher degrees has become a reality in big cities in recent years as the number of graduates has increased to more than 5 million annually. This has made it a very realistic concern for some to think about applying what they had learnt to developing rural villages.

The other side of the coin is that a lack of educated talents had become an obstacle to economic and social progress in the rural areas.

It is undoubtedly the right time for the central government to guide graduates with preferential policies to display their talents in rural villages for both personal self-fulfillment and rural construction.

As far as self-fulfillment is concerned, this scheme has scratched exactly where it itches. Young graduates do need a hard environment to weather themselves so that they will hopefully develop a strong will and personality, which will be beneficial to their future development, as well as for the country.

From a long-term point of view, we do need a batch of youngsters, who are strong-willed enough to endure hardships and with mature minds to deal with complicated situations, and shoulder their duties at various levels.

As the ancient sage Mencius said, a man must endure sufferings both physically and mentally before taking on important missions. We hope that the scheme will not only help improve the life of rural villagers but also help train real talents.

(China Daily March 25, 2008)