Zhang Baoshun, Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the CPC, who encourages college graduates to work as village officials in north China's Shanxi province. Some 8,500 college graduates took up posts as village officials in more than 8,000 villages of 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi on Thursday, August 9, 2007. [Photo:CNR.CN]

Some 8,500 college graduates have been selected and sent to take up posts as village officials in north China's Shanxi province.

According to CNR.CN Thursday's reports, it marks an almost eight times rise in the number of college-graducates-turned village officials in the northern province. This year's village leaders-to-be were selected through strict examinations from among over 80 thousand college applicants.

The report says these college graducates will work as deputy secretaries of village Party Committees, assistant directors or members of the villagers' committees in more than 8 thousand villages of 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi.

Shanxi began to recruit college graduates to work as village leaders in 2006, when some1, 100 were admitted.

These college graduates have great prospects in the vast countryside, said Zhang Baoshun, Secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the CPC. They need to get themselves involved in what the countryside and farmers need the most.

According to a relevant provincial plan, it is expected that every village throughout Shanxi will have a college graduate working as a village official by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan period.