Career opportunities in Tibet for young graduates

30-year old Tenzin Puncog visits a poverty-stricken family in a village in Tibet in September 2017. [Photo: China Plus]

Finding ideal jobs is fast becoming much harder in China especially for younger job seekers, as the number of college graduates each year keeps going up. In fact it has been reported that this year alone has seen nearly eight million students graduate from university ready to enter the job market, most of whom are likely to job hunt for opportunities located in the eastern or coastal regions of China.

However what these young graduates don't realise is that there are other locations with less competition where it might be much easier to secure a job without much competition. Places like the Tibet autonomous region where some young graduates have been building their careers lately. Here's Nillah Nyakoa with more details.

Young people now constitute the majority of Grassroots Leadership in villages and towns in Tibet.

A good example is 30-year-old Tenzin Puncog (丹增平措), who graduated from Southwest Minzu University in Chengdu, Sichuan province before returning to his home turf of Tibet where he now works as a civil servant. Last year, he was appointed the chairman of the local Kang-xiong Town's national people's congress and deputy secretary of the township party committee.

Kang-xiong Town is home to over 600 households. The poverty line there is set with an average annual disposable income of 3310 yuan or 500 US dollars per capita. However, many families still fail to reach this amount.

Tenzin Puncog says now the town's biggest agenda is to alleviate poverty in the area.

(SB1: Tenzin Puncog)

"The goal for poverty alleviation is accurately made for each individual. There are nine measures, including industrial development, relocation, education and Medicaid and so on. Kang-xiong Town mainly relies on the industrial development and relocation, with the goal of lifting the county completely out of poverty by 2018, including the 216 households in our town."

Located north of the Yalu Tsangpo River, the town is situated in the valleys of Tibet and is surrounded by rocky Mountains standing at 4100 meters above the sea level.

Sparsely populated, Kang-xiong has just 4,000 residents living on its 286 square kilometers of land. Agriculture is the backbone of the local economy. Main produce include highland barley, wheat, and peas. Animal farming and sideline production are also developped.

According to Tenzin Puncog, since 2013, he and other local officials have dedicated themselves to establishing professional cooperatives among farmers and herders. The move has promoted the development of hand-made cashmere products, jade as well as the production of butter while also taking advantage of the abundant local resources.

While trying hard to enhance the living standards of the locals, Tenzin Puncog says they also strive to solve conflicts with the help of experienced officials.

(SB2: Tenzin Puncog)

"It is a crucial task to help solve conflicts among residents in this town. We have a mediation committee consisting of senior, experienced leaders who mitigate any conflicts that may arise. Through their guidance we are able to tackle these challenges."

Frequent communication with the locals is a compulsory duty for all local leaders. A Tibetan himself, Tenzin Puncog, does not face a hard time communicating with his fellow villagers.

But the story is different for Feng Mei, who finds it hard to communicate with residents of this town. Unlike Tenzin Puncog, Feng Mei comes from Chongching where he graduated from Xizang Minzu University in 2011 before joining the civil service and subsequently landing her current job as the deputy head of Kang-xiong Town.

Feng Mei underscores the need for effective communication. She says she is learning to acquire the skill while harvesting a lot from this role.

(SB3: Feng Mei)

"My biggest gain is learning to communicate with respect. At the beginning, I was not willing to communicate because of the language barrier between me and the locals. After a while I reviewed my shortcomings and changed my attitude. Despite the language barrier, I now can understand them and also enable them to understand my point of view."

Four years of her working in the village enabled her to integrate herself into Kang-xiong's big family.

Today he is among the 100-thousand leaders who have been dispatched since October 2011, by the regional government of Tibet to work in local villages, and help solve conflicts and develop the local economy.

(SB4: Feng Mei)

"We've slowly communicated with the local villagers. They had originally thought we were county leaders and kept a distance from us. During my four years' working here, I have paid visits to every household, showing my respect to their customs and culture. As a result, I can feel they have begun to trust me. We have now got along well with each other."

Local township affairs, ranging from overall planning to small neighborhood disputes, test local leaders' wisdom and capabilities. For the post 85-generation of leaders, this can be a real challenge.

Zhang Chaokai is the oldest member in this township management. Born in 1985 in east China's Shandong province, he graduated with a major in finance from Xizang Minzu University. Having worked in the Rinbung County's Development and Reform Commission for a while, he was appointed head of Kang-xiong Town in 2015.

He is proud of the progress and achievements the town is making under his watch.

(SB5: Zhang Chaokai)

"Tremendous changes have taken place in Kang-xiong Town following the repair of a big bridge that has made the location more accessible. Postal services are now available here too, and a newly-built railroad also makes the entry and exit from the town much easier. Just a few remote villages still remain inaccessible."

Zhang Chaokai notes how the local villagers named the big bridge as "the Bridge of Happiness." Without the bridge, he says, they would still have to commute more than two hours driving through the 60-kilometer mountain path from Kang-xiong to the headquarters of the county government.

And now that journey only takes 20 minutes.

The next step he says, is to develop a green economy.

(SB6: Zhang Chaokai)

"Kang-xiong's development is about building an environmentally friendly economy in four locations including the town center which has attracted more than 4.9 million yuan of investment for a tourism project. Currently the registration of ancient trees in three trenches is underway. Also, Chencun Village is now seeking a harmonious co-existence of both farming and animal husbandry."

In 2016, Tibet maintained its double-digit growth that the region has seen for more than two decades.

This year, it has set its economic growth target above 11%. In the first quarter of 2017, there were five economic indicators in Tibet, ranking first in terms of the growth rate all over the country, including the 11% GDP growth, 14.6%-retail sales of consumer goods units, and 14.3%-countryside residents' per capita disposable income.

These figures prove that although this snow-covered plateau is high and wide, it also offers a broad space for boosting young ambitious people's career development paths. So more and more young graduates are seizing opportunities in areas like these in their quest to achieve their set career goals.

For CRI, I'm Nillah Nyakoa.