Almost 96 percent of China's secondary vocational school graduates found jobs on graduation last year, the Ministry of Education announced Wednesday.

It was the fifth straight year that the vocational graduate employment rate exceeded 95 percent.

The high employment rate reflected the huge market demand for medium-level technicians, said Wang Jiping, vice director of the ministry's Department of Vocational and Adult Education.

Last year, 6.08 million students graduated from secondary vocational schools, and 95.99 percent of them were employed on graduation.

Wang said the qualifications in highest demand were manufacturing, information technology, civil engineering, trade and tourism, and transportation.

However, the threshold pay for graduates was relatively low.

A sample survey earlier this year in secondary vocational schools across China showed that a quarter of threshold pay was lower than 1,000 yuan (US$146) a month.

Wang said vocational schools across China should tailor curriculums to the demands of specific industries.

At the same press conference, ministry official Song Yonggang said 66,000 teachers would be recruited this year to work at rural schools in central and western China where teachers are in short supply.

The recruitment, under a program initiated in 2006, would see the central government guarantee the teachers equal pay with urban counterparts in their first three years.

Previously, teachers were reluctant to work in rural areas because the pay, funded from local budgets, was lower than in cities.

(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2010)