The Chinese government is planning to launch a national vocational training program targeting the 10 million to-be rural migrant laborers across the country, which will help them improve job skills and thus increase rural income.

Six Chinese ministries, namely the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Construction, jointly released a circular Wednesday, urging local governments to launch the training program for the local rural migrant labor force.

The training program is considered a major measure for the six ministries to implement their scheme made last September. The scheme said between 2003 and 2005, the government will offer vocational guidance to 10 million rural laborers who plan to move to non-agricultural industries or migrate to cities.

Half of those to-be migrant rural laborers will receive vocational training and further job training will also be provided to about 50 million migrant rural workers who have already left the rural areas, according to the scheme.

Currently, the six ministries have set up a leading group for the training program and the leading office was set in the Ministry of Agriculture. The six ministries have also made relevant regulations for the implementation of the training program.

The program will first be launched in some major grain-producing regions, concentrating on labor-transferring provinces and some needy areas and revolutionary areas, noted the six ministries in the joint document. The central government will arrange special capital to those areas supporting them to launch the training program.

According to the regulation on the training program, rural laborers will receive short-term vocational training under the program, ranging from 15 days to 90 days. The training content will involve housekeeping, catering and restaurant service, construction and manufacture.

The Chinese government will encourage all kinds of training agencies to offer such training to rural workers, but the selected agencies are required to offer market-needy training so as to ensure the trainees find proper jobs in cities.

The training tuition will be jointly born by the government and the trainees said the six ministries, adding that the part offered by the central government must be used to aid the rural laborers for the training rather than other fields.

(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2004)