URUMQI, June 28 (Xinhua) -- Muhtar Jume's greatest long-term wish is that his children finish college and earn good employment prospects.

He knows first-hand about the struggles of securing a livelihood in the family home of northwest China's Xinjiang without a good education, a situation that has been highlighted by Chinese leaders recently.

As a junior middle school graduate and non-mandarin speaker, Muhtar Jume has struggled his way up to the position of workshop monitor at a porcelain company in Kashgar. He earns 3,500 yuan (569 U.S. dollars) each month.

Employers in the region also attest to the need to boost education. "We only need to recruit 150 workers in a similar factory in inland provinces, but in Xinjiang, we doubled the number as local laborers' technology level lags far behind, and language and customs barriers affect efficiency," said Zhao Zhouqiang, vice president of the Kashgar Yuandong Group Co. Ltd, the parent of Muhtar Jume's porcelain company.

Among the 250 Uygur staff, only three have college degrees. Half of them have middle school degrees and about 40 percent have only primary education or are illiterate, said Zhao, adding that training is a big challenge for them.

It takes at least three months to train a young villager into a qualified worker, said Lin Lexuan, chairman of Nanda New Agriculture Co. Ltd, the largest farm produce company in southern Xinjiang.

Uygurs in the area, which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, suffer from poverty, high unemployment, harsh natural conditions and a dense population, conditions which offer room for overseas separatist forces to penetrate, said Yang Fuqiang, an assistant researcher with the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

The need to improve employment was pointed out by Chinese President Xi Jinping as a top priority for authorities in Xinjiang at the second central work conference on Xinjiang in late May.