Twenty-one years into his job as a village official, Jiang Quanzhong said he is somewhat bewildered about how to lead the villagers in the building of "new socialist countryside", a pillar scheme in the country's blueprint for the coming five years.

Jiang is about to find the answer soon, as he has become one of the first 400 village officials in southwest China's Sichuan Province to receive a systematic training this week on village administration, Party building and modern farming expertise.

The week-long training, given by university professors, senior agronomists and exemplary village officials who have become role models for their counterparts, is designed to qualify Jiang and many other grassroots officials as bellwethers in a nationwide campaign to lead the 900 million farmers toward wealth.

"I have never expected to enter a classroom again at age of 50," said Jiang, who only finished junior high school but works as secretary of the Longwangmiao Village Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). "It's come just in time to improve myself and hopefully to be a help to my fellow villagers."

Jiang has chosen to study village planning, rural infrastructure construction as well as modern expertise on livestock and poultry breeding which he thinks necessary and effective means to help his villagers become richer.

Altogether 50,000 grassroots officials in the province will receive the week-long free training programs in the coming two years, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee.

"Each session includes 40 hours of theoretical training and 16 hours of field work and discussion," said Wang Chuan, deputy head of the department. "This is the first time for the province to organize such a large-scale systematic training for village officials."

Tang Yilu, a village official from Anyue County, has chosen to study fruits planting because his village is known for its sweet and juicy peaches, lemons and grapefruits. "I value this opportunity and I hope I can learn some practical skills," he said.

Amid nationwide efforts to build a new socialist countryside, China's No. 1 village, Huaxi Village in the east China's Jiangsu Province, has offered a free training program to grassroots officials from across the country since April.

According to Wu Xie'en, secretary of CPC Huaxi village committee, his village will spend 25 million yuan (US$3.1 million) on training 10,000 village officials from other provinces and regions in the coming five years, an effort to share with them Huaxi's experience in getting rich.

"We will pay for all the trainees' accommodation and training expenses. Our goal is to help more Chinese peasants get rich," said Wu, whose fellow villagers gained an annual per capita income of US$10,000 in 2005.

A latest survey of the Organization Department of the Sichuan Provincial CPC committee shows about 62 percent of the village heads in the province never went to college: 46 percent of them received secondary education and 16 percent only finished study in primary school.

"Many young and able people have been elected village officials in recent years, but their poor education background often hinders them from playing their role properly," said Li Ling, an associate researcher with Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. "Adequate training will hopefully help them become able bellwethers to lead the villagers toward wealth."

China's 900 million farmers living in 680,000 villages report an average per capita annual income of 3,255 yuan (US$407) in 2005. This is less than one third of the per capita disposable income for the urban residents, which hit 10,493 yuan (US$1,312) last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The central government launched a campaign of building a "new socialist countryside" early this year, aiming to help farmers share in the country's prosperity.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2006)