Source: PEKING REVIEW Vol. IV , No. 32, August 11, 1961
Graduation ceremonies were held in universities and colleges all over the land during the past two weeks. Altogether 160,000 passed their final exams and received their diplomas, an increase of 27,000 over last year. They will be leaving shortly to take up jobs in various parts of the country.
Of this new crop of college graduates over a third are engineering students, hose from teachers’ colleges almost make up another third. The rest have completed courses in medical science, agriculture, natural and social sciences, literature and art, foreign languages and physical culture.
At n time when the entire nation is going all out to develop agriculture and build a socialist countryside, it is only natural that many of these graduates should choose to go to the rural areas. The overwhelming majority of the 10.000 graduates from the agricultural colleges will no doubt work in agricultural research and agro-technical institutes in the counties and special administrative regions. Many of the 19,000 medical college graduates will work in the county hospitals to help develop medical and health work in the rural areas.
As usual, industry will absorb a great number of new graduates. Some branches will take in 80 per cent more newcomers than last year.
In addition, the higher educational institutions will also need new young blood to reinforce their expanding faculty staff. Preliminary estimates put those who will teach in colleges at 7,000.
College students in New China are trained in accordance with the needs of the country. Each student is ensured of work upon graduation. Suitable jobs are allocated on the basis of national needs and personal preference.
Like those classes which graduated before them this year’s students likewise have a commendable scholastic record and they have shown a fine spirit in identifying themselves with the cause and life of the working people. Over a half of the more than a thousand graduates of Tsinghua University, the nation’s leading polytechnic institute, this summer received top grades, for their diploma designs.
Between 1949, the year when the People’s Republic was founded, and 1960, a total of 600,000 students had been trained in China’s higher educational institutions. They are making notable contributions to the nation’s socialist construction. The new graduates will be a welcome reinforcement in the various fields of national endeavour.
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