Construction workers are an important force in the country’s drive to build a beautiful countryside. To improve the skills of the craftsmen, various localities have held training sessions on systematic construction engineering.

① A construction worker named Zou Wenhao makes cement mortar at a construction site. (People’s Daily/Wang Ruqiang) ② A construction worker named Wu Jiacai cuts a wooden board with a saw at a construction site. (People’s Daily/Kang Denglin) ③ A construction worker named Lu Chuanyou measures the vertical surface of a wall at a construction site. (People’s Daily/Hu Xue)

Zou Wenhao in Longyan city of southwest China’s Fujian province has been a construction worker for more than 30 years. Experienced as he is, Zou said the training sessions he received on theoretical construction knowledge were really beneficial.

Just days ago, the city invited construction engineers and rural planning experts to offer lessons on systematic construction engineering to construction workers like Zou, teaching them to read construction drawings, use construction instruments, and selecting sites for rural buildings. “For the first time in my 30-odd-year career, I gradually realized that building a house is a subject worth learning during the lessons,” said Zou.

Zou has become an expert on construction. Nowadays, he will draw a blueprint of a building before kicking off the project and use a gauge to reduce measurement errors from as much as 1 centimeter to within 1 millimeter, significantly raising the efficiency and quality of construction.

Wu Yingxiong, a professor on civil engineering with Fuzhou University, said it is necessary to organize training for rural construction workers because despite their high level of skill in this field, they still require systematic training.

Earlier this year, the country released a guideline on the acceleration of talent training for rural revitalization, which said that efforts should be made to cultivate rural talents, and enhance training for and the management of rural construction workers.

Since 2014, south China’s Hainan province has organized 146 training sessions for rural construction workers. Linyi city in east China’s Shandong province has offered free training sessions for nearly 90,000 construction workers.

By the end of 2020, Linyi had renovated 82,000 dilapidated rural houses. The house of Qi Jianlan, a villager from Feixian county, was one of the projects. Two years ago, Qi lived in an old adobe house with flimsy walls and a deteriorating roof that leaked when it rained. Seeing this, Lu Chuanyou, a local construction worker, offered to help Qi upgrade her house, but he was rejected at first. When Lu and his co-workers explained to Qi how dangerous it would be to continue living in such a dilapidated house like hers and showed her a blueprint of the renovation project they had drawn for her, Qi finally said yes. Today, the woman lives in a much more livable house.

In the past, uneven roads were a major problem for residents in the Liujiazhai village of Feixian county. After the local government invited construction workers to help improve the living environment, the village took on a new look as the road conditions improved and the houses were fully renovated to look brand new. “We creatively made use of what the village had to decorate it with, giving it an artistic touch,” introduced Lu. Currently, as one of Shandong’s beautified demonstration villages, Liujiazhai has also become a popular site for tourists.

“The rural construction workers did an excellent job in making plans, building or renovating the houses, and maintaining and managing the houses. Their participation in rural planning and construction is becoming stronger,” said Gu Jianhui, an associated professor of architecture with Shandong University, who added that the rural construction workers play an important role in rural rejuvenation.