China rolls out efforts to help ethnic youths land jobs

State-level efforts have been rolled out to improve employment conditions of the young people in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, a Chinese official said Sunday. Lyu Xinhua, spokesman for the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said the committee has made suggestions to increase financial and policy support in this field based on investigation. "When we say we pay great attention to the employment of the young people of ethnic minorities, we mean it," the spokesman told a press conference. Lyu cited an example of investigation teams sent by the CPPCC National Committee from April to June 2013 to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Shanghai, on a mission to address how to improve vocational education in ethnic minority regions. Lyu also introduced a program that enrolls middle school students from four ethnic-minority-inhabited prefectures in southern Xinjiang to receive three-year vocational education in nine provinces and municipalities across the country. Each student is provided by the Ministry of Finance with financial aid of 5,000 yuan (about 817 U.S. dollars) every year to cover their tuition fees and living costs. Some 3,000 students, who were first enrolled in the program in 2011, will graduate this year, Lyu said. "We hope they can land the jobs they want. And the government also has the responsibility to help them get jobs," the spokesman said.