On 13 February 2019, the Chinese State Council published its “Implementation plan on National Vocational Education Reform” (in Chinese), signalling a significantly strengthened focus on vocational education, which was reinforced in early March 2019 by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. In his 2019 Government Work Report, Premier Li announced the transfer of 100 billion RMB (20 billion AUD) in funding from the unemployment insurance fund into vocational training to support 15 million people to upgrade their skills.Educational Leadership training china
The plan prioritises reform of vocational education in China to better equip the labour force to meet the demands of the economy now and into the future. It contains 7 priority objectives and 20 detailed actions. A high level summary of the plan and an unofficial translation of the objectives are included below.
In 2018, China had 26.9 million total vocational education students and annual commencements of 9.3 million. [1] The proposed reform of the vocational education sector follows a reported decline in China’s labour force over recent years – largely due to China’s well publicised aging population. China’s working age population shrank by almost 3 % between 2011 and 2018, and accounts for around 65% of China’s 1.4 billion population. This percentage is estimated to further reduce to 57% in 2030. [3] The reform plan is also quite timely in the lead up to Shanghai playing host to the World Skills Competition 2021.
Key points of the plan
The plan seeks to raise the status of vocational education - an
attempt to eradicate a common mindset that vocational education is a
“second choice” to an academic degree.
Through the plan, China is
seeking to reform its entire vocational education framework, including
occupational standards, assessment and evaluation mechanisms, teacher
training & recruitment, and industry engagement. The State Council
will establish a National Vocational Education Steering Committee to
oversee the reform.
China’s vocational education system will transform from having a “quantity focus” to a “quality focus”, with greater importance being placed on teaching quality. In 2018, China had 1.3 million teaching staff at vocational institutions, of which fewer than 40% were reported to have both the practical work experience and teaching skills required for their field. The plan seeks to increase the proportion of teachers who have at least 3 years work experience in industry and a 3 year vocational diploma. A part-time employment mechanism for professional experts will also be introduced. From 2020, teaching positions for specific courses at VET institutes and applied universities will generally not be open to new graduates.
By 2022, China aims to transform select universities into “practical”
institutions – Universities of Applied Sciences - where students can
acquire a bachelor degree plus a number of occupational skills
certificates, a mechanism known as the “1+X” model. The “1+X” model
allows vocational institutions and universities to offer an educational
qualification plus a number of skills certificates. The model will be
tested in select institutions from March 2019.
Commencing in 2019, a
“credit bank” for vocational studies will be established to record
individual vocational education credits to enable the transfer and
conversion of those credits towards other certification.
The plan also seeks to increase vocational education opportunities. China’s vocational education is separated into secondary vocational and higher vocational. Secondary vocational education is offered to junior high school graduates (equivalent to Australian grade 9) who do not wish to pursue further studies at an academic senior high school. Higher vocational education is offered to senior high school graduates, and admits students through the “Gaokao” (College Entrance Exam). The plan proposes to maintain an approximately equal proportion of high school students studying at academic high schools and secondary vocational schools, and would like to see students who did not complete high school (both junior and senior high school), veterans, retired athletes, laid-off workers and returned migrant workers have secondary vocational education opportunities. According to the 2019 Government Work Plan, China promises to greatly increase fiscal support for vocational colleges and will establish a national scholarship for secondary vocational education.
In 2014, the State Council published a reform plan to allow entrance into higher vocational colleges through multiple channels other than the National College Entrance Exam (Gaokao). [4] Instead of taking the Gaokao, students can sit an ‘academic plus skills test’ organised by local governments or higher vocational institutions to be accepted. This path is often taken by graduates from secondary vocational schools. For those who graduate from academic high school, they can use their high school result to satisfy the academic requirement, and only take a skills test. In the past three years, this reform has seen more than half of the newly-enrolled students into higher vocational education enter through the non-Gaokao channel. The plan seeks to continue exploring this new model to enrol more quality students with practical skills.
