FACING REALITY: There are still not nearly enough jobs to go around despite a Jiangsu Province report that almost all graduates find work

Just Drink This

In order to prevent unauthorized advertising and sales of beverages, organizers of the Beijing Olympic Games have printed on every Olympic ticket that no beverage is allowed into stadiums and the spectators can only buy brand beverages designated by the Olympic Organizing Committee.

Protecting the interests of sponsors of the Olympic Games is a conventional practice, so citizens in the host country should support it. However, faced with such a monopoly, the spectators may find the beverages boring and too expensive.

The spectators could have different preferences for beverages. Will the organizers try to offer as many different beverages as possible? And given the spectators' different income levels, will the organizers inform the designated beverage manufacturers to provide different kinds of beverage at different prices?

After all, if the spectators are only allowed to have certain kinds of beverage in the stadiums, the organizers cannot expect them to adhere to the regulations if they fail to satisfy different tastes.

Guangzhou Daily

Keep It Real

According to statistics recently released by the Education Department of east China's Jiangsu Province, 96 percent of this year's college graduates have found work. As far the employment rate is concerned, graduates of prestigious universities lag behind ordinary colleges, and those from state-run universities lag behind non-public colleges. This finding is obviously contrary to people's expectations.

If Jiangsu's statistics are true, we would not see so many high school graduates jostling to get into China's Ivy League universities, and non-public universities would not need to make such tremendous efforts to attract high school graduates.

Some prestigious universities have accused their low-grade counterparts of offering false data. It's no secret that a few colleges even stipulate that students will not receive their diplomas unless they can show job offers, whether valid or not. As a result, statistics show their students have more job opportunities than those graduating from prestigious universities.

College graduates' employment is now a big headache for colleges and education departments at various levels. The way out is not to make up false data, but to take positive actions. After all, false figures will not help put money in the pockets of new graduates.

The Beijing News

Only for Show

In line with the Central Government's arrangements, teams of workers from non-affected provinces and municipalities have been sent to quake-hit counties in Sichuan Province to help with local reconstruction. In order to show respect and concern for these workers, officials from their home provinces are visiting the quake zone.

This is actually a good practice, but it is found that instead of visiting the workers on construction sites, the first thing some officials did was check in to luxury hotels in Chengdu, the provincial capital city of Sichuan. They then visited the disaster-hit area in the comfort of air-conditioned buses before returning to the city.

To some extent, this is more like a pleasant outing than a government show of encouragement for relief workers. In some cases, the officials' flight and hotel costs and general living expenses far exceeded the condolence money they offered to disaster areas and quake victims. Isn't it better to save these tour expenses and use the money toward reconstruction efforts?

China Youth Daily

Money Grabbing Kindergartens

Several kindergartens in east China's Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, recently announced that this summer, a monthly 15 yuan-20 yuan ($2.14-$2.85) air-conditioning surcharge would be collected for each child. Some kindergartens even warned the parents that, if they did not pay the fees, their children would be moved to classrooms without air conditioners, despite parents having already paid large fees for child care.

Thanks to the state's subsidies for compulsory education, schooling expenses are no longer a burden to students' families. However, due to relaxed controls, preschool education is emerging as a hotbed of arbitrary tuition charges, and it is commonplace to see preschool tuition fees imposed willy-nilly.

An open market is vigorous, but without effective regulation, it collapses into chaos. This is the case with preschool education in most parts of China. To solve the problem of arbitrary tuition charges, people cannot depend on kindergartens to improve the situation. In the long run, it's hoped that preschool education will be covered by the compulsory education system; and at this moment, it's urgent to produce effective laws and regulations to standardize this market. As a period of the most basic education, preschool education should receive enough government attention and subsidies. In no way should parents become easy targets for money-grabbing and unscrupulous kindergarten officials.

Dazhong Daily