Chinese college students set out for China's rural areas on
Monday to publicize "new socialist countryside" policies and help
rural residents improve their lives in the annual summer vacation
volunteer campaign.
More than 1,000 college students attended the inauguration
ceremony held in the Beijing University of Science and
Technology.
The program, jointly organized by the Department of Publicity of
the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of
Education and several other organizations, drew more than 200,000
volunteer groups from around 1,000 colleges and universities this
year. These groups will spread to around 10,000 villages.
"I hope you will all do good deeds for the rural residents and
in the process improve your life skills and build up your
character," said Ouyang Jian, deputy head of the Department of
Publicity of the CPC Central Committee, at the inauguration
ceremony.
There are 600 major volunteer groups this year, with 100 teams
devoted to publicizing government policies, 100 publicizing the
"socialist concept of honor and disgrace", 100 providing technical
assistance to farmers, 100 giving lectures to rural students, 100
providing medical and health care and 100 teams of PhD students
offering advice on local economic development, according to the
activity plan.
For the last decade, the government has been organizing college
students to make field trips to the countryside during the summer
vacation, which generally starts at the beginning of July and lasts
for around one and a half months.
A circular issued by the organizers said the activity is "an
effective way" to improving the ideological and political education
of college students.
"It is also an important measure to allow college students to
play a role in the 'new countryside construction," says the
circular.
The government seeks to promote rural development with the
"building of a socialist new countryside" program, which aims to
improve agricultural production, living standards and public
administration in the rural areas.
(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2006)