THE less than satisfactory employment situation in China seems to be having little effect on the job-hunting of university students, despite the continuous expansion of recruitment in recent years, recent figures suggest.

Brochures published by many universities include in their introduction the claim that the employment rate of their new graduates is more than 90 per cent.

But is this the real situation on campus? A recent story by Xinhua News Agency found that many universities forge graduate-employment figures to boost appraisal ratings as well as to attract more students.

According to Xinhua, some students from a university in North China¡¯s Hebei Province said that although they failed to find a job before leaving campus, the teachers arranged a working unit for each of them. They were asked to sign contracts with the companies even though many of the positions didn¡¯t exist. The contract was a sham and students didn¡¯t work a single day for their ¡°employers? Yet the fake jobs padded the schools?employment rates.

¡°Over 90 per cent?is the most frequently seen claim for the employment rate of universities?graduates, regardless of the size of the school, the Xinhua story said.

¡°Currently, the importance of students?employment has been raised so high for universities?appraisals that it exceeds even the higher-education entrance rate for middle schools,?some teachers were quoted in the story as saying.

¡°Continuously expanding university recruitment and the poor employment situation in the country has put us in such a difficult situation that we have to seek different ways to raise the employment rate, including some that are abnormal.?

These teachers said they didn¡¯t believe the practice of asking students to sign fake contracts with working units did any real damage to students.

¡°Although it was not wrong to include the employment rate in universities?appraisals, it was by no means reasonable to totally depend on this statistic,?experts said. (Star News)