In China, a problem of plenty Pallavi Aiyar | The Hindu | June 22, 2006
http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/22/stories/2006062204011100.htm MILLIONS OF bright-eyed college graduates in China are destined for disappointment this summer, their dreams of cashing in on the country's spectacular economic growth, shattered. According to a recent report by the National Reform and Development Commission, the country's central planning authority, there will be no jobs for 60 per cent of China's 4.13 million students who graduate this year. Only 1.6 million jobs will be on offer, according to the report, a decline of 22 per cent compared to the previous year even as the number of graduates has risen by 22 per cent since 2005. The unemployment situation is expected to only worsen in the coming years with young Chinese going to university in record numbers. Last year, colleges and universities enrolled 5.04 million students, 4.7 times the number of those admitted in 1998. The total number of students in various kinds of higher education in 2005 was 23 million the highest in the world. Those among this thundering army of new graduates who do land jobs are increasingly finding themselves earning at a scale on a par with blue-collar migrant workers. In a recent column in the China Daily, columnist Liu Shinan recalled how only a few years ago college graduates in China were considered to be part of an elite and turned up their noses at salaries of 3,000 Yuan ($375) a month. However, a government survey in 2005 found that the average monthly salary of employed graduates was just 1,588 Yuan ($198). In interviews with migrant workers in shoe factories in China's southern city of Wenzhou, this reporter found that wages for middle- school graduates at the larger factories were as high as 1,200 Yuan a month. Mr. Liu recounts a popular joke: When a company boss yells that he needs 10 workers, he is answered by five migrant workers, four college graduates and one M.A. Way to mobility In China education has traditionally been seen as a way to upward mobility. Unlike India where caste and birth determined status, the Chinese imperial examination system remained theoretically open to all, so that through study even peasants could aspire to join the bureaucracy. As a result of this ingrained mindset parents are willing to invest their entire life savings in securing a university education for the one-child they are allowed by law to have. Rural families, whose annual income amounts to a few thousand Yuan, often borrow money to cobble together the 10,000 Yuan ($1,250) a year fees that many Chinese universities have begun to charge. But increasingly, as the disappointed faces and snaking queues at job fairs around Beijing indicate, this is an ill-afforded investment that provides low returns. In an interview to China's official news agency Xinhua, Vice- Minister of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Zhang Xiaojian blamed the lack of adequate jobs on "surplus production capacity, more trade frictions and the revaluation of the Yuan." The logical conclusion would appear to be that China is suffering from an oversupply of graduates. However, in his column Mr. Liu points out that China only has some 150 graduates for every 10,000 citizens, compared to 1,500 in the United States and 900 in Japan. According to Anna Westlake, a human resources consultant with over 10 years experience in the mainland, most companies are desperate to hire. Their problem lies not in the number of graduate applicants but the quality of those applicants. Few prove to be independent and creative thinkers and fewer still are equipped by their universities with the skills in demand in the job market. China's education system today is best described as semi-privatised. Formerly state-sponsored institutions increasingly must rely on raising funds themselves. However, the resulting high tuition fees are often not matched by improved teaching quality. This reporter was formerly a visiting lecturer at the prestigious Communications University of China, the top journalism school in the country. Admission was competitive and only 50 students out of a total 10,000 applicants were accepted for a new major in "English Broadcasting." The students had to pay 10,000 Yuan a year in addition to another 1,200 Yuan for accommodation. The first batch from this new major graduated last year. Today only one out of the 50 graduates has been able to find a job in English-language broadcasting. While others have found places with Chinese-language media companies, many work as secretaries or being unable to find a job at all have decided to study further in the hope that an additional degree might improve their employment prospects. "I ended up very disappointed with the degree," says Teresa Lee who was only able to find a job as a secretary at an investment bank, despite having done well in her exams. "We learnt almost nothing in the four years that was of actual use in the job market, as I was to discover," she adds bitterly. Ms. Teresa says that despite her disappointment she is aware that she is lucky to have a job at all and attributes it to the fact that the Communications University of China is well regarded. Graduates from the majority of non-elite universities have it much worse. Faced with a situation where millions of university-educated graduates are only able to land jobs that pay the equivalent of a factory worker's wage, China's authorities are scrambling to issue regulation they hope will alleviate the crisis. Thus, last month Beijing decided to restrict the number of future college enrolments. Local governments were also issued a notice asking them to "do a good job" in helping graduates find jobs and instructed to pay unemployment subsidies to those who have been unable to gain employment by September. China's authorities are aware that they are sitting on a potential social time bomb. The last major challenge to the Government's authority came in 1989 from a student movement that spread into the wider community. Since then the Government has tried to "co-opt" the educated "elite" who have by and large benefited from the economic reform process. The majority of anti-government protests in recent times have come from the rural poor and laid-off workers, sections who have been left behind in China's economic boom. These disadvantaged groups, however, lack the clout and voice of college-educated graduates. With social inequality much worse today than in 1989, Beijing is well aware that disaffection among the youth could conceivably once again fuse with wider discontentment. Improving the quality of university education and generating enough jobs to absorb the burgeoning number of graduates is thus a task of urgency. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
