The youth expressed their understanding and support to the country's call of seeking employment in the comparatively backward west and at grass roots, as they attended the youth's once five-year meeting in Beijing this week.
 
The First Plenum of All China Youth Federation's 10th National Committee and All China Students' Federation's 24th National Congress held in Beijing from Friday to Sunday have witnessed more than 1,900 participants, who are all young people from various fields, and colleges and universities, to discuss topics youth are interested in.

"Only by working in tough environment could we accomplish what is responsibility and what we should cherish in our lives," said Gao Tian, the post graduate in China's prestigious Shanghai-based Fudan University, at a forum on contemporary young students' healthy growth and responsibility.
 
Gao, a young woman who had never left Shanghai since she was born, voluntarily chose to work in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region for one year as a village teacher. She helped four of her students at the poor, arid Xihaigu Prefecture, entering into college, which has been a great achievement since the place had never seen a student pass the entrance exam before.
   
"I came from the countryside, and I have a complex to my hometown, so it is natural for me to choose to go back after graduation, as a way to pay my due efforts to the development of my hometown," said Zhu Xuejun, a senior college student in China Agriculture University from north China's Shanxi Province.
 
At the beginning of this month, the State Council issued a circular to encourage college graduates to seek jobs at grass roots so as to release the employment pressure in big cities and to satisfy the hunger for professionals in the comparatively poor areas.
   
And in the following weeks, top leaders including Hu Jintao and Jia Qinglin have made the same call.
   
The number of college graduates rose from over one million in 1999 to 3.38 million in 2005. As a result, many graduates failed to find jobs in the recent years in big cities while higher educated professionals are badly needed in comparatively backward areas, particularly the western part.

The reasons that college graduates are reluctant to work in the west are numerous, such as the income gap between developed regions and underdeveloped ones, the immature employment modes of small companies which make some graduates feel insecure and so on.
 
"We established a flexible identity registration system to dispel graduates' worries of not being able to go back big cities later on," said Hou Jianliang, the vice minister of personnel, to solve the problems, "And the government promises to support those working in grass roots with special funds."

(Xinhua News Agency July 25, 2005)