Chengdu, April 9:

China is all set to train thousands of village officials in the southwest Sichuan Province on administration, party bu-ilding and modern farming expertise.

The week-long training, given by university professors, senior agronomists and exemplary village officials, who are role models for their counterparts, is designed to qualify grassroots officials as bellwethers in a nationwide campaign to lead the 900 million farmers toward wealth.

Jiang Quanzhong, who has worked for 21 years as a village official, says, “I have never expected to enter a classroom again at the age of 50. It has come just in time to improve myself and hopefully to be a help to my fellow villagers.” Jiang has chosen to study village planning, rural infrastructure construction and modern expertise on liv-estock and poultry breeding, which he thinks are a necessary and effective m-eans to help his villagers become richer. 50,000 grassroots officials in pro-vince will receive free training progr-amme in the coming two years, according to the organisation departm-ent of CPC Sichuan provincial committee.