Rural skills competition aims to inspire next generation

Young people have made efforts to sharpen their skills and inject life into the nation's rural economy in a major competition.

China's second State-level rural skills competition ended on Friday in Guiyang, Guizhou province, with the aim of offering people a stage to showcase their skills and turn more young people into skills masters, to help boost the rural economy.

"My hometown and many rural places in my province have very good agricultural produces and fruits. But the local villagers don't have much knowledge on e-commerce or livestreaming, so they usually worry about the produces' sales," said Suo Chengyu, the gold medal winner of the competition's e-commerce event.

The 21-year-old from Zhaotong, southwestern province of Yunnan, who is at her third year at Yunnan Technician College, said she wishes to make her contribution to the development of e-commerce in rural areas and become a teacher after her graduation.

"The rural areas need more e-commerce talent. I wish to encourage or inspire more youths in rural areas to use their strength or skills to vitalize the villages' development," she said. 

Wang Xiaojun, an official from the Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security, said that the competition is a good opportunity for the public to pay more attention to skilled people, which can also help optimize nation's evaluation system to the skilled. 

She said that the competition promotes the spirit of working models and craftsmanship to the public, which can inspire more people, especially those from rural areas, to learn and use skills to land jobs and contribute to the nation. 

The competition started on Wednesday in Guiyang and attracted more than 700 competitors from across the country. It included 11 events focusing on useful and practical skills including bricklaying, farm machinery maintenance and e-commerce, and each event set a separate group competition for experienced workers and students.

The competition was jointly organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, also the Guizhou government. The first national rural skills competition was held in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in September 2021.