Obsession with employment rate wrong

Graduates from normal universities in Hunan province interact with their potential employers at a job fair in Hengyang in March. [Peng Bin/For China Daily]

MORE THAN 500 GRADUATES OF NORTHWEST NORMAL UNIVERSITY IN LANZHOU, capital of Northwest China's Gansu province, were reportedly registered as employed although they have not landed a job. Southern Metropolis Daily commented on Saturday:

It is not the first time that some job-seeking college graduates have been "sold" to employers without the faintest idea of what happened, just because the colleges want the employment rate of their graduates to "look better".

In fact, what happened to the over 500 students to graduate from the Northwest Normal University this summer, may never have been found out if it was not for the "clash of career choices".

They are not allowed to take civil-service entrance exams as they were registered as being employed. Nor would the involved school officials be held accountable if their misdeeds were not exposed by the media.

Universities often presume a seamless connection between graduation and employment, which is not necessarily true. The truth is, it takes time, personal choices, and proper training for graduates to find a dream job. It is rather outdated and unrealistic for universities to link graduation to employment and create made-up jobs for those who are unemployed just to improve their own reputations.

In addition, the overall management of graduates, including the existing household registration system, personnel records system, and welfare allocation based on working years, needs to be improved, as college students are no longer guaranteed a job when they graduate.

In particular, the education authorities should relinquish their obsession with the graduates' employment rate, in a bid to prevent colleges from forcefully registering some job-seeking graduates as employed without their consent.