Universities have been ordered to start teaching basic courses on entrepreneurship to undergraduates to encourage students to start businesses and become self-employed after graduation.
According to the draft teaching plan Entrepreneurship Foundations released by the Ministry of Education, the course requires no less than two credit units and 32 hours.
The goal of the course is to establish a positive awareness of entrepreneurship, it said.
Instead of starting businesses after college, most Chinese graduates look for employment opportunities.
There were 6.6 million college graduates nationwide in 2011, according to the ministry. However, only 1.6 percent of graduates started businesses, said the 2012 Chinese College Graduates Employment Annual Report.
MyCOS Institute, a consulting company, released the report in June.
"Becoming an entrepreneur in China, especially for new graduates, is a tough decision," said Wang Hao, a 25-year-old Tsinghua University alumnus who runs his own business.
After graduating from Tsinghua in 2010, Wang went to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
"I thought about finding a job or internship in the US in 2011, just before my graduation, but I decided instead to follow my dream to come back to China to start my own business," Wang said.
He and other two friends from school now run HHT Tech Co, a medical appliance design business.
"I always knew I had entrepreneur’s blood," Wang said, before dismissing the idea of being able to "teach the entrepreneurial spirit".
Wang described himself as good at relating to people and getting work done. "This is a natural gift," he said. "It wasn’t gained from training."
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