China Moves To Strengthen Vocational Education Amid Industrial Transformation

In line with the country’s economic transformation, China is ramping up efforts to promote the development of its vocational education system, aiming to expand the nation’s employment channels while cultivating more targeted talent for emerging high-tech industries.

The country has established the world’s largest vocational education system, this was revealed by an official from the Ministry of Education, Chen Ziji.

Data from the ministry showes that China currently has a total of 11,300 vocational education schools with more than 30 million students. 

The number of candidates taking the vocational college entrance examination and higher vocational school candidates has been growing in 2022.

The latest support measures from the government came as Central China’s Hubei provincial government released an implementation opinion on June 10 to promote high-quality development of local vocational education, which proposed to deepen and integrate the vocational educational system with industries and different types of educational systems while enhancing support for relevant schools and institutions in financing. 

State media, Xinhua News Agency reported that the revised Vocational Education Law came into force on May 1, which clearly defines that the vocational education in China is equally important as general education and states that China encourages the development of a variety of forms of vocational education.

The revised version also stressed the significance of establishing a sound vocational education system, continuously deepening and integrating the education system with different industries, strengthen cooperation between schools and enterprises, and improve the system and measures to protect vocational education.

China has so far formed more than 1,500 vocational education groups and alliances covering more than 45,000 member units, including enterprises, schools, and industry and research institutions to conduct studies.

Domestic vocational schools have built 24,900 internship training bases with enterprises, supported with loans, land and tax reduction, with an average annual increase of 8.6 percent.

Vocational schools and institutions across the country have also strengthened support for vocational education. 

As multiple industries in China have been going through a crucial transformation and upgrading phase, vocational education has become an indispensable resource for cultivating more professionals, while market demand for the talent is increasing. 

However, analysts have stressed the importance of continually improving standards and quality for vocational education, adding that enterprises meanwhile should also take professional skills into consideration on top of academic qualifications.