A 24-year-old college-graduate village official in Tangkou, Beijing's suburban Huairou district committed suicide on September 5, The Beijing News reported Wednesday.
Though someone familiar with the case told media that the suicide was caused by her breaking up with her boyfriend - whom she could only see on weekends - the young woman's death has sparked discussion about graduate village officials: What are their lives like? Why do they choose to do this job? Do they receive enough support?
College-graduate village officials have contributed a lot to the development of rural areas with their knowledge and ideas in the past years, but one key issue is that they lack support, which should be changed, Yu Shaoxiang, an expert at the Institute of Social Development Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Choice
Li Yuchen (pseudonym), who used to be the assistant of a village chief in Beijing, just finished his three-year stint as a college-graduate village official, and is now a journalist at a Beijing-based newspaper.
Li applied to be a college-graduate village official after graduating from the China University of Political Science and Law in 2013.
"To be honest, I chose this path to get a Beijing hukou [or household registration], and to become qualified for civil service positions that require applicants to have working experience at the basic level of government," Li told the Global Times on Thursday.
When he was working in the village, Li was in charge of publicity. He was a broadcaster on the local radio "Voice of Harmony," which spread national and local news, weather forecasts and information on the peach trade, the specialty of the region.
"I learnt the local dialect by myself, so that the villagers could understand me better," Li said.
Like Li, Xiao Tian (pseudonym), who just graduated from Qufu Normal University in East China's Shandong Province, became a college-graduate village official in 2015 in a village in Shandong.
"I majored in Chinese literature at university, so as my job here is writing reports and stuff like that, I really feel I have done something for the village," Xiao told the Global Times on Friday, adding that she felt welcomed by the villagers.
Confusion
"I grew up in a city, so it took me some time to get used to the environment here," Xiao said.
"The village is in the mountains and sometimes I have to walk a long way. At night it is extremely quiet, I was scared at the beginning about living here alone," she added.
"Some of my schoolmates found jobs in big cities and some went abroad. When I compared myself to them I felt a little bit lost and even doubted my decision," she said.
"Gradually I accepted my situation. The scenery here is beautiful and the people are nice. Since I came here, I should do this job well," Xiao said. "I'm looking forward to what I can achieve in this job."
"Compared with the living costs in urban area, the salary of a village official is still quite low," Li said, adding that he sometimes felt lost too, but he has decided to do his best anyway.
Since the policy started in 2008, a total of 411,000 college graduates have been selected to become village officials, according to dxscg.com.cn, a website that specializes on the policy under the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
"On the one hand, the college-graduate village official policy could release the great pressure to find employment for college graduates; on the other hand, the group could bring new technology and ideas to rural areas for better development," said Yu.
"There is no supportive policy to keep the college-graduate village officials in the rural areas. Besides, they also lack social experience or even basic knowledge of the rural environment, which could hardly benefit the area," Li said.
"Moreover, they do not receive enough understanding from the society, and so many problems, such as their psychological condition, are neglected," Yu noted.
College-graduate village officials should be picked from candidates that have a real interest in rural areas, then the policy should give them enough support to ensure that their time in the rural area goes smoothly, Li added.
