Cover Story

TRADE UPGRADE

A surge in vocational education aims to produce legions of skilled professionals fit for China’s future economy. But are industry partnerships and practice-oriented courses enough to improve job prospects?

By Xie Ying , Yang Zhijie Updated Sept.1

Students undergo training at the College of Aeronautical Engineering at Nanjing Vocational University of Industry Technology, June 2024 (Photo by Yang Zhijie)

Pictured is the training lab of Lanzhou Resources & Environment Voc-Tech University, June 2024 (Photo by Yang Zhijie)

Shen Wenqing from Hangzhou Qinggong Technical College participates in a hairdressing event at the WorldSkills Competition 2022 held in Helsinki, Finland, October 20, 2022 (Photo by Xinhua)

Students learn how to operate ffve-axis computer numerical control machine tools, the Beijing Jingdiao College of Nanjing Vocational University of Industry Technology, June 2024 (Photo by Yang Zhijie)

Beijing Municipal Education Commission announced in late June that they have applied to the Ministry of Education (MoE) to establish a new vocational school named Beijing Technology Vocational University.　

Different from other vocational colleges that typically offer associate diplomas but not academic degrees, this new school will be an upgrade from Beijing Polytechnic, and will offer undergraduate degrees.　

Setting up vocational schools that offer bachelor degrees is a new reform launched by the MoE several years ago. It aims to improve workforce qualifications and give more choice to vocational school students who often face career discrimination due to a perceived lower standard of education.　

Students in China must attend school for at least nine years, six years in primary education, and three years in junior high school, after which they sit a high school entrance exam. This exam funnels students into one of two streams for three more years, either to a general high school, which is the route to colleges and universities, or to a vocational high school, which focuses on preparing students to start work immediately after graduation.　

The national college and university entrance examination, taken at the end of senior high school, sees a further sifting of students to regular universities or vocational colleges, depending on exam scores. This created a widespread perception that those with lower educational attainments are funneled into vocational education, which led in turn to the belief that vocational schools are inferior and offer poor career prospects.　

In October 2021, the State Council released a guideline that said enrollment in vocational institutions that offer bachelor degrees should be at least 10 percent of the total enrollment of higher vocational education by 2025, and that China’s vocational education should be among the best in the world by 2035.　

On June 21 this year, the MoE published the latest list of colleges and universities for 2024 enrollment, which includes 51 vocational universities that offer undergraduate degrees. Data showed that in 2023, vocational schools offering undergraduate degrees enrolled nearly 90,000 students, 17.8 percent more than that in 2022, accounting for 1.6 percent of the total enrollment in higher vocational education.　

As the number of candidates for general universities and colleges increased and the employment rates for their graduates declined amid the economic slowdown, many vocational schools stood out by maintaining higher employment rates through closer cooperation with enterprises and practical training. Experts expect this shift will help reduce discrimination against vocational schools and promote the integration of vocational and general educations.　

Demand Changes

Lian Fei, enrollment director of Nanjing Vocational University of Industry Technology (NVUIT), found that enterprises are increasingly willing to employ their graduates. “They’ve given us good feedback about our graduates they employed and nearly 100 percent of the employers want to hire the next cohort,” Lian told NewsChina. “This year, some enterprises told me in advance that they want to employ the next batch of graduates with a undergraduate degree.”　

A former ordinary vocational college in Jiangsu Province, NVUIT received approval to become a vocational university offering degrees at the end of 2019, the first such higher vocational school in China. In 2022 when the school’s first cohort of students that shifted from two-year associate diploma courses to four-year degree courses graduated, the school had to work to ensure businesses knew about their graduates. Two years later, businesses came seeking new employees.　

Lian attributes the change to the increased need for professionals trained in advanced technologies. This year, the school added three new degree courses in engineering disciplines. Enrollment has expanded every year and the minimum score students need to have attained to get a college place from the entrance examination keeps rising.　

“Our minimum entry score has exceeded all the private [general] universities in Jiangsu and even some second-level public colleges and universities,” Lian said. “This year, we plan to enroll about 6,700 students for undergraduate degrees, which includes candidates who sat the national college entrance exam and the exam for vocational high school students, as well as those already holding an associate diploma,” he added.　

In 2014, China’s State Council first proposed that vocational colleges should be allowed to offer degrees. The same year, an MoE official told media that the shift for general universities to focus on more practical technology or engineering courses is crucial to ensure there is a good system of training skilled professionals across many industries.　

However, in an article published in the Journal of National Academy of Education Administration in October 2022, Wang Xuchu, who has a doctorate in education from South China Normal University, and former president of Sun Yat-sen University Huang Daren pointed out that universities are often reluctant to switch gear toward vocational courses, as they fear discrimination after being labeled an institution for vocational education. This is why vocational colleges themselves led the reform.　

In May 2019, the MoE approved the first batch of vocational schools to offer degrees.　

Sun Cheng, former director of the Institute of Vocational and Continuing Education, National Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that the move for universities to offer more practical courses and vocational schools upgrading to offer degrees aims to emphasize the integration of industries and education, increase cooperation between schools and enterprises and improve graduates’ competitiveness.　

“Our research found the MoE’s reform was largely driven by external forces, I mean, the development of industrial digitization and smart technologies,” Kuang Ying, a professor at the Institute of Vocational & Adult Education, East China Normal University, told NewsChina, adding that many sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and services have seen significant changes in their need for talent. For example, with the rise in pet ownership, vocational schools, which offer pet-related courses under the wider discipline of animal husbandry, are seeing greater demand for trained professionals knowledge-able in pet nutrition and veterinary medicine. Meanwhile, manufacturing now requires staff who can master mechanics and technology theory with improved ability to judge and handle complex situations.　

“Along with the development of new quality productive forces, Chinese enterprises will definitely have higher demand for highly skilled interdisciplinary talent for emerging strategic industries and future new industries, so we’ll see more vocational colleges offering degrees and more flexible majors,” she said.　

Wang Hongjun, former director of NVUIT’s teaching affairs office, told NewsChina that in the past, graduates from vocational colleges were likely employed as manual laborers with little chance of promotion. Now vocational school graduates with a degree are employed in design and technological posts, and can even enter a management career track.　

Dong Qing from Hunan Arts and Crafts Vocational College participates in the fashion technology event at the WorldSkills Competition 2022 held in Helsinki, Finland, October 20, 2022 (Photo by Xinhua)

Teachers and students from the Shanghai Technical Institute of Electronics & Information demonstrate robots they developed at a vocational school competition held in Shanghai, May 13, 2023 (Photo by Xinhua)

Funnel Delays

In the 1980s, documents from the MoE show that it wanted to keep a certain ratio of vocational high school students to those of general high schools, though the ratio was not stipulated. In 2022, the MoE said in the revised vocational education law that there should be coordinated development of vocational education and general education. These documents have been widely interpreted as meaning the government expects to use the end of junior high school examinations to funnel students 50:50 to senior high school and vocational high schools.　

This has caused a lot of stress for parents due to the entrenched negativity toward vocational schools, which are assumed to have poor teaching quality, poor school ethos and a concentration of “bottom of the barrel” students.　

This anxiety has become more intense due to stiff competition for graduate jobs. Many parents push their children to study day and night to avoid a vocational school, even to the detriment of children’s mental health.　

Now that vocational colleges offer undergraduate degrees, it is expected to ease this parental anxiety.　

The government has also introduced a special college entrance exam for vocational high school graduates. This exam, which is less difficult than ordinary college entrance exams, focuses more on technical skills rather than academic subjects.　

Those who pass the exam can apply to certain regular universities as well as vocational colleges, allowing more equal access to tertiary education and offering a second chance to students whose poor marks limit them to vocational high schools.　

So far, around 28 provinces and municipalities have run these exams.　

“At present, 80-90 percent of our graduates choose to go into tertiary education via this special exam route for vocational high schools,” Yuan Zhehai, principal of a vocational high school in Ninghai, Zhejiang Province, told NewsChina.　

A report published by the China Institute for Educational Finance Research in 2020 showed that among the surveyed 17,000 graduates from vocational high schools, 65 percent entered a higher vocational school after graduation, of whom 10 percent were enrolled into a school offering degrees. A 2021 report on the development of China’s vocational education released by the National Institute of Education Sciences which covered more than 100,000 respondents in 31 provinces and municipalities showed that many students use vocational high schools as a route to tertiary education rather than employment.　

This trend is consistent with many experts’ calls to cancel the exams at the end of junior high schools, arguing it is too early for students at the age of 15 to be categorized into life-changing decisions about whether to pursue the academic route to a senior high school, or the vocational route.　

In 2022, Zhang Zhiyong, former exeuctive director of the Chinese Education Policy Institute under Peking Normal University, wrote in the China Education News that as Chinese manufacturing is undergoing a transition to higher-end industries, and therefore a more highly skilled workforce is needed, this funneling of students to academic or vocational education will naturally happen after senior high school when students are around 18.　

A training lab for assembling and disassembling industrial robots, Lanzhou Resources & Environment Voc-Tech University, June 2024 (Photo by Yang Zhijie)

Better Bridges

Now educational experts say that the all-important national college entrance exam will no longer have such an influence on a student’s future path. More integration between general and vocational education is expected to allow students to transfer from a vocational high school to a senior high school or vice versa.　

This new policy is still being piloted, though it was initiated a decade ago. Yuan Zhehai’s school has been offering these “integration” classes since 2016. Yuan said there are three classes a year of 40 students each. In the first semester, the school provides the same courses as an ordinary senior high school. Students who rank in the top 20 percent are then eligible to transfer from the vocational system to a regular senior high school if they pass an exam.　

A similar pilot was conducted between three vocational high schools and two senior high schools in Xiamen, Fujian Province in 2021. If a vocational high school student passes an exam, they can transfer to regular senior high, and the same goes for a student who wishes to change to vocational high school.　

Education authorities in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province said in June they would allow students to transfer between senior high schools and vocational high schools.　

Yet, Chen Zhiwen, secretary general of the Talent Development Commission, Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy, warned that the integration policy is often used as a way to escape vocational high schools, which still face discrimination.　

“In my view, this funneling to either general or vocational education is necessary and reasonable, but as parents strongly oppose it, this integration policy is more of a compromise,” he told NewsChina. “The integration policy was initially designed to enable students to make decisions based on their own interests and advantages,” he said, adding it was not designed to allow people another way to quit vocational school for senior high school.　

Kuang Ying argues that the integration should not merely involve transferring students between two kinds of schools but rather integrating courses. As stated in an April document from the Zhejiang provincial government, vocational education content should be added to curriculums at all stages of schooling, including primary.　

“It’s misleading that integration should happen in the senior high school phase only. Instead, it should run through all the educational stages, even at kindergartens,” she said.　

Kuang points out that Chinese students have a poor understanding of jobs and careers compared to their peers in developed countries, and therefore do not know which degree courses to choose.　

“They actually have no idea what they’ll do in the future after they graduate,” she said. “And many schools, although they offer labor education courses, often fail to provide career guidance, so a lot of students are really in the dark about what job would suit them most,” she added.　

Course Mismatch

According to media reports, many university graduates, including some with postgraduate qualifications, are now learning skills and technologies at vocational colleges which offer classes for university graduates. They hope that this experience at a vocational school will increase their value and help them stand out in the ultra-competitive Chinese job market. This, as experts have pointed out for years, indicates that university courses do not match what employers need.　

Kuang believes that universities and vocational colleges should exchange courses to improve university students’ employment prospects and broaden vocational college students’ education.　

“The integration between vocational and general education is a win-win,” she added.　

But Kuang noted that vocational high schools are still important. “Vocational high schools are still a necessity in the education system, and they will become the foundation of the whole vocational education system to feed into industrial and economic upgrading,” she said. “Integration does not refer to replacement, but rather indicates they are of the same importance,” she added.　

Chen Fan (pseudonym), who has been in education for over 10 years, agrees. “Not everyone is suited to a regular senior high school,” he said. But as Chen Zhiwen said, when Chinese employers still place high value on academic degrees, it becomes even more important to develop vocational education in different phases, including high and tertiary vocational schools.

“We need to continue the way how vocational schools are oriented during the reforms for employment needs to better meet the enterprises’ demands, rather than them being assimilated into general education,” Kuang said.　

Both Kuang and He Zhen, director of the National Institute of Vocational Education at Beijing Normal University, emphasized the need for vertical integration of vocational education through different phases, including post-graduation training.　

“We need a design for integration throughout the different stages [of vocational education] to make better connections and prevent repetitions of courses,” Kuang said.　

“The integration should not be limited to within schools, but should extend to after they graduate... I mean the training provided by enterprises... We can’t just widen the bridge but ignore the narrow, bumpy road after the bridge,” He Zhen said.　

MAGAZINE

MOBILE

MAGAZINE

MOBILE

TRADE UPGRADE