Courting collegians

Agence France-Presse reported last month that the relaxation in rules comes as the PLA targets young people - particularly educated graduates - and recognizes that many of China's youth have grown more fashion-conscious and trendy. A Beijing Recruitment Office representative confirmed to China Daily that the preferential treatment targets educated graduates, whose numbers in Beijing have soared.

Yang Songcheng (left) and Yang Jinghuan are brothers from Ganyu county, Jiangsu province, and students at Xuzhou College of Industrial Technology. Their parents pin red flowers on them, honoring their commitment to the army, at a farewell party before they left home on Dec 10 to begin military training. [Si Wei / for China Daily]

According to a senior officer with the General Staff Department of PLA, who asked to be unidentified, college recruits tend to be quick learners and thus find it easier to be promoted than enlistees with just a high school education. About half of college graduates recruited in 2009 were made officers this year.

The high quality of college recruits greatly reduces the time needed to produce a good technician, which was nearly two years during the 1990s, said Liu Yi, a military scholar from the PLA Nanjing Institute of Politics. "Some recruits have already mastered skills . . . like driving, nursing and engineering" before they enlist, he said.

Jia Na, the first female college recruit from Tsinghua, believes that psychological maturity contributes more to performance than an academic degree. "High school recruits cannot get used to the stringent military rules as quickly as elder and experienced college ones," she said.