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 1,000colleges 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 Ou Yangjian, 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.
