From Department of International Cooperation and Exchange, Ministry of Education

The system of vocational education consists of education in vocational schools and vocational training. Vocational education in China is provided at three levels: junior secondary, senior secondary and tertiary.

Conducted mainly in junior vocational schools and aimed at training workers, peasants and employees in other sectors with basic professional knowledge and certain professional skills, junior vocational education refers to the vocational and technical education after primary school education and is a part of the 9-year compulsory education. The students in secondary vocational school should be primary school graduates or the youth with equivalent cultural knowledge and its schooling lasts 3 to4 years. To meet the needs of labor forces for the development of rural economy, junior vocational schools are mainly located in rural areas where the economy is less developed. At present, there are 1065 such schools with the enrollment of 833,300 students.

Data of Junior Secondary Vocational School Development

in the ’90s (in 10 thousand people)

The secondary level mainly refers to the vocational education in senior high school stage. Composed of specialized secondary schools, skill workers schools, vocational high schools, and as the mainstay and adult secondary schools vocational education in China, at current stage secondary vocational education plays a guiding role in training manpower with practical skills at primary and secondary levels of various types.

Consisting of secondary technical schools and normal schools, specialized secondary schools enroll junior high school graduates with a schooling of usually 4 years and sometimes 3 years. A few specialities are open only to senior high school graduates with the schooling lasting 2years. The basic tasks of these schools are to train secondary - level specialized and technical talents for the forefront of production, and all the students should master the basic knowledge, theory and skills of their speciality in addition to the cultural knowledge required for higher school students.

Aiming at training secondary - level skill workers, skill worker schools enroll junior high school graduates and their schooling lasts 3 years. Quite capable of practic ing and operating, their graduates will directly be engaged in production activities.

Developing on the basis of the structural reform of secondary education after China adopted the policy of reform and opening to the outside world and directly coming from the reorganization of regular high schools, vocational high school enrolls junior high school graduates and its schooling lasts 3 years. Its main task is to train secondary - level practice - oriented talents with comprehensive professional abilities and all - round qualities directly engaged in the forefront of production, service, technology and management. Accordingly, the specialities offered in vocational high schools are mainly related to the third industry.

Specialised secondary schools for adults is developed after the adoption of reform and opening to the outside world policy. The initial objective for this type of school is to provide training to those adults who have already finished their junior secondary education and develop them into the technical talents at secondary level. Due to the changes of situations, the target group for enrollment of these schools has been shifted to the graduates from junior secondary schools with the schooling year expanded from the original 2 years to the current 3years.

In 2001, there were altogether 17,770 secondary vocational schools (including vocational high school, specialized secondary schools and skill workers schools and specialised secondary schools for adults), with the enrollment of 642,300 students and the recruitment of 3,976,300 students.

With the schooling lasting 2 to 3 years, tertiary vocational education mainly enrolls graduates from regular high schools and secondary vocational schools. In recent years, the proportion of graduates form secondary vocational schools has been increased, establishing the link between secondary and tertiary vocational education gradually. Aiming at training secondary and high - level specialized technical and management talents needed in the economic construction, tertiary vocational education emphasizes the training of practice - oriented and craft - oriented talents. At present, institutions providing tertiary vocational education are divided into four categories. The first is the indepedent higher vocational technology institutions; the second is the 5-year higher vocational classes provided in the regular specialized secondary schools; the third is the tertiary vocational education provided in some regular higher education institutions and adult higher education institutions, which has been experimented in over 130 specialites among 180 institutions;the fourth is the reformed regular institutions offering2 to 3-year higher education with the emphasis on training practice-oriented talents, namely high-level professional technical talents for the forefront of production.

Vocational training of various forms has been playing a more and more important role in vocational education. At present, vocational training is mainly conducted and managed by the departments of education and labor, but enterprises are encouraged to provide vocational training for its own employees. In 200short-term training are proved for100 million person-time.