TECH- VOC Education in China

Aurea M. De Castro
Loraine G. Tenorio
 Chinese vocational education has shown
tremendous vitality in its development since
the late 1970s, beginning with Deng Xiaoping's
open-door policy. In the past twenty years, the
Chinese government has issued and
implemented a series of VET policies to meet
the requirements for its economic transition to
what is ostensibly a socialist market economy.
New government policies, regulations and laws
have created a significantly changed
environment for the innovative development of
VET.
 China’s system of VET in secondary schools was very weak in the
early 1980s. Graduates seeking employment were found to lack
the specialized knowledge and skills required to engage
competently in productive work. This meant that new industry
and trade sectors were badly in need of skilled workers. An
effective VET system was urgently needed to assist in economic
reconstruction. China realized the importance of reforming VET at
the senior secondary level, and the requirements needed for the
ideological, cultural and skill development of prospective workers.
The policy of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party, Decision on the reform of the structure of education,
emphasized the need for scientific and technological experts, as
well as intermediate and junior level technicians (Misko, Liu, He,
Li & Phan, 2002, p. 25). As a matter of urgency, this historically
significant document assigned a special status to VET and
directed the way for its future development. Skilled workers were
to receive sound vocational training to assist in the reconstruction
Over two decades, from the1980s through to the 1990s,
significant changes took place in the structure of the Chinese
economy, labour market and vocational education. The economy
basically moved from being centrally planned in the interests of
the national collective economy to being regulated by market
forces serving shareholder interests. The vocational education
system was partly adapted in response to the changing economic
and industrial structures. However, the contradictions between
industrial adjustment and sustainable employment have not been
overcome. Former State enterprises adopted the policy of
decreasing employee numbers through increasing the efficiency
of their production processes. As more workers become
unemployed, the social pressure to gain employment and work-
related skills has increased markedly. The redevelopment and
promotion of VET in secondary schools has been among the
measures for assisting Chinese workers to adapt to the re-
adjustments in economic structures and the changes in the labour
 Problems with vocational
education in China
 In the past two decades vocational education in
China has been used to foster the skilling of
millions of workers for the different jobs now
required of the labour force. A huge training
network has been established to meet the
requirements for vocational education, including
the education of VET teachers. The quality and
level of vocational education have been
enhanced through learning about modern
vocational education thought and teaching
patterns from outside China and using these to
 First, the number of people being trained by VET
institutions is smaller than required. Although
vocational education in China is popular, it is
graduating too few skilled workers, thus
undermining the sense of optimism once felt in this
field. There are large pools of unemployed people,
even though many factories face serious shortages
of skilled technicians. In 1999, of the 140 million
production workers in China, only 70 million were
considered to be skilled, and only 35% of these had
ever received VET (Huang; cited in Keating,
Medrich, Volkoff & Perry, 2002, p. 78).
 Second, the quality or outcome of VET
graduates is less than satisfactory. A
significant problem is that the training
provided differs markedly from the
nation’s demand for workers in
particular jobs. Moreover, the
curriculum standards upon which their
skills are built are frequently outdated
and irrelevant to the needs of
industry.
 Third, the capacity of VET to deliver
training is not balanced across the
nation. The eastern provinces of
China have benefited from
privileged trade and investment
policies; whereas in the interior
provinces, especially in agricultural
areas, there is a shortage of VET
institutions
 Low workplace skills and lack of opportunities for
collaboration with new enterprises result in VET
graduates having low adaptability for work
requirements (Keating, Medrich, Volkoff & Perry,
2002, p. 87).
 Finally, as in Australia, VET in China has
been and still is considered to be the
poor relation of higher education and
therefore a less desirable destination for
secondary students (Keating, Medrich,
Volkoff & Perry, 2002, p. 87).
STRATEGIES MADE
 These include linking different levels of VET
systems; linking student intake to job
placement; linking corporations and VET
institutions, and seeking international
cooperation. These strategies may not be
effective in the long term, but they are
currently helpful, and further and more
effective strategies are being explored.
China: Improving Technical
and Vocational Education
to Meet the Demand for
High-Skilled Workers
 In response to the growing demand for
higher level technical and professional skills,
Guangdong Province in China worked with
the World Bank to improve the quality and
relevance of its vocational and technical
education by promoting competency-based
training and strengthening the delivery
system, directly benefiting more than 9,000
students, as well as school teachers and
administrators. The lessons learned from
implementing the project was disseminated
and used to inform policy development.
Challenge
 Guangdong has been China’s manufacturing
and export powerhouse with three decades
of rapid economic growth. Migration from
rural areas inside and outside the province
had been a key to this growth by providing a
steady supply of labor. These migrants filled
jobs in construction and labor‐intensive
assembly operations producing electronics,
garments, toys, and shoes.
 In recent years, however, the economy
had moved away from older labor-
intensive industries using large
quantities of unskilled labor. The
industrial structure shifted towards new
knowledge-based industries such as
electronic information, electrical and
special purpose equipment, petroleum
and chemicals, increasing the demand
for skills.
 While skills demand was strong, vocational and
technical secondary schools face capacity
constraints, with only 60 percent of applicants
being enrolled. There were also issues of quality
and relevance in these schools. Equipment for
practice was limited, curricula were often outdated
and disconnected from industry requirements,
instructors lacked adequate industry experience
and teaching skills, and managers lacked the skills
needed for functioning in a rapidly changing
economy. School-based reforms for quality and
relevance were needed to support the transition to
a more knowledge-based economy.
SOLUTION
The Guangdong Technical and Vocational Education and
Training Project was designed as a pilot to explore
innovative approaches to reform of the technical and
vocational education and training system in China.  The
following approaches were adopted to address the
challenges identified:
 promoting and rolling out competence-based and
demand-driven school reform;
 capturing lessons by closely monitoring and evaluating
the project progress and subsequently disseminate them
to other provinces and countries; and
 conducting surveys and data analysis for evidence-based
management and policy development.
RESULTS
Implemented between 2009 and 2015, the project help
upgraded three project schools and achieve the following
specific results:  
 The percentage of students that passed the skill
certification exams increased to 90.37 percent by 2014, up
from 70 percent in 2009 when the project started.
 The percentage of graduates finding employment within
six months increased from 86 percent in 2009 to over 98
percent by 2014. The relevance between jobs and majors
in 2013 was 59 percent for technical college graduates and
46 percent for secondary technical school graduates, up
from 48 percent and 45 percent respectively in 2010.
 The average starting monthly salary showed an increase
from RMB1,744 (about US$282) in 2009 to RMB2,625
(about US$424) in 2014.
 At the national level, three policy studies themed,
respectively, on financing of vocational education, quality
improvement in curriculum development and school-
industry collaboration, and long-term governance
structure were produced, providing input for the
preparation work for the 13th Five-Year-Plan. Moreover,
results and lessons from the project were used to inform
the development of two national-level guidelines related
to technical education and training, and are expected to
also inform the revision of China’s Vocational Education
Law.
 At the provincial level, the government’s directives on
promoting technical education in Guangdong that drew on
the project schools’ experience in competency-based
curriculum development and implementation.
 In addition, operational school-industry advisory bodies
were put in place, with established guidelines and standard
forms of contract for school-industry partnerships; teachers
and administrators benefitted from a variety of training
activities; competency-based training syllabus, curriculum
standards and textbooks were developed, tested and rolled
out; training space was expanded for students to practice
their newly acquired skills; and school management
information system was enhanced. 
" We are now encouraged to ‘learn by
doing’ and ‘learn through trial and
error’. We focus more on how to
complete an assignment rather than just
memorizing what teachers say in class.  “

He Xiaowen
Student at Guangdong Light Industry Secondary and Tertiary School