BEIJING - About 20,000 college graduates will join the annual campaign to volunteer in rural China in the fields of education, farming, medicine and poverty reduction this year, according to official sources.

The campaign, launched in 2006, recruited about 20,000 fresh graduates from universities each year to work in the countryside for two to three years.

A total of 23,777 graduates volunteered last year to improve social and economic development of rural areas across the country, said Xin Changxing, spokesman of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS).

This year's recruitment drive will start later this month and will draw to a close on June 30, said the official news release, adding that the Organizational Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and the MHRSS ordered local governments to pay these graduates accordingly, at a the standard rate township-level public institutions pay their entry-level employees.

Relevant government departments have also been ordered to help volunteers find jobs when their contracts draw to a close.

More Chinese college students have been willing to volunteer in rural areas in recent years, especially as it is often difficult for new graduates to find jobs without any work experience.