Many youths want to learn how to drive cars. This year one sixth of undergraduates in Beijing have registered at driving school. The students, mostly from majors such as business management or imitational trade, will finish their driving courses within 20 days or so.
Training costs have dropped to 4, 500 yuan for students, according to the Haidian Driving School in Beijing. The price is not really low, but students will accept it, seeing it as an investment (投资) in their future. Familiarity with the operation of computers and fluent English are the basic skills graduating students need to find a job. But a driver s permit has become another factor (因素).
"In the job market, owning a driver's permit sometimes strengthens a graduating student's competitiveness for a good position," says Li Hua, an undergraduate at the China University of Political Science and law.
Cars will become a necessary part of many people's lives in the coming years, and it is difficult to get a permit out of campus because of the pressures on working people's time. "Having a full-time job after graduation offers limited time to learn to drive. We senior students have plenty of spare time, plenty of oppurtunity to learn," says another undergraduate at the university.
Wu Dong, an official at the driving school, said undergraduates were very able and serious, and could grasp in an hour what ordinary people took four hours to learn. In this driving school, middle-aged people, young women and college students are the main customers.
From March 1, 2018, to get a driver's permit, a beginner is now required to have at least 86 hours' practice before the final road test.
