The graduates will study and intern in universities and companies in some of China's most developed regions such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen cities for one to two years before they return to take jobs in government agencies and institutions as well as state-owned enterprises in Xinjiang, said Zhang Chunxian, Communist Party chief of Xinjiang.

      This year 12,000 participants will start their training. Most of them graduated between 2002 and 2007. Upon their return, they will be hired by government institutions and agencies, said Liu Xianglin, head of the project.

     Another 10,000 participants, who mostly graduated between 2007 and 2009, will start their training next year and return to work as teachers or employees of state-owned enterprises, he added.

     Trainee Ureri Kurban, 28, is set to head for Shenzhen in southern China, which is near Hong Kong, on March 24. He cannot wait to set foot on seashores and football stadiums, which he have never been to before. "This may be the beginning of a happier life."

     After graduating from Xinjiang's Kashgar Normal College in 2007, Ureri Kurban worked as a cashier in a small store, carried goods for a supermarket, sold second-hand cars for a friend and, before joining the program, drove a motor taxi. He earned about 700 yuan (106.8 U.S. dollars) a month.

     Ureri Kurban could not believe it when he signed an employment contract with a local veterinary clinic only a few months after he signed up for the project and passed a test and an interview. He is expected to have a salary of about 2,000 yuan per month after returning from Shenzhen.

    "It was almost too good to be true," Ureri said. He would no longer struggle to feed his newborn baby, his wife, his mother and three younger sisters. His father died when he was six.

     Together with 31 other graduates, who included 28 ethnic Uygurs, one Kazakh and two Han Chinese, Ureri Kurban will study in Shenzhen Vocational and Technical College.

     Some of the graduates will study at several premier Chinese universities such as East China Normal University in Shanghai and Capital Normal University in Beijing, Liu said.

    The training project is free of charge. Governments of the destination cities will spend 450 million yuan for the program while Xinjiang will spend 400 million yuan, Liu said.

     The project covers most of Xinjiang's jobless college students who graduated between 2002 and 2009. The region has 60,000 jobless college graduates. About 80 percent of whom are minorities while 60 percent are women, according to statistics from the regional human resources department.

    By sending trainees to study and intern in larger and more developed cities, the project will help cultivate talents for Xinjiang, Zhang added.

    "After years of unemployment, many trainees find it even more difficult to find jobs as their skills and knowledge have become outdated. The program will prepare them for new jobs," Liu said.

     The trainees are free to choose to work in the regions where they study or intern, find jobs elsewhere or return to work in Xinjiang. The government will provide help wherever they choose to go, Liu said.

    "The employment of college graduates is a top priority for Xinjiang. It will be solved within two years," Zhang said.