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China Vocational and Technical Schools
Both regular and vocational secondary schools sought to serve
modernization needs. A number of technical and "skilled-worker"
training schools reopened after the Cultural Revolution, and an
effort was made to provide exposure to vocational subjects in
general secondary schools (by offering courses in industry,
services, business, and agriculture). By 1985 there were almost 3
million vocational and technical students.
Under the educational reform tenets, polytechnic colleges were
to give priority to admitting secondary vocational and technical
school graduates and providing on-the-job training for qualified
workers. Education reformers continued to press for the conversion
of about 50 percent of upper secondary education into vocational
education, which traditionally had been weak in the rural areas.
Regular senior middle schools were to be converted into vocational
middle schools, and vocational training classes were to be
established in some senior middle schools. Diversion of students
from academic to technical education was intended to alleviate
skill shortages and to reduce the competition for university
enrollment. Although enrollment in technical schools of various
kinds had not yet increased enough to compensate for decreasing
enrollments in regular senior middle schools, the proportion of
vocational and technical students to total senior-middle-school
students increased from about 5 percent in 1978 to almost 36
percent in 1985, although development was uneven. Further, to
encourage greater numbers of junior-middle-school graduates to
enter technical schools, vocational and technical school graduates
were given priority in job assignments, while other job seekers had
to take technical tests.
In 1987 there were four kinds of secondary vocational and
technical schools: technical schools that offered a four year,
post-junior middle course and two- to three-year post-senior middle
training in such fields as commerce, legal work, fine arts, and
forestry; workers' training schools that accepted students whose
senior-middle-school education consisted of two years of training
in such trades as carpentry and welding; vocational technical
schools that accepted either junior-or senior-middle-school
students for one- to three-year courses in cooking, tailoring,
photography, and other services; and agricultural middle schools
that offered basic subjects and agricultural science.
These technical schools had several hundred different programs.
Their narrow specializations had advantages in that they offered
in-depth training , reducing the need for on-the-job training and
thereby lowering learning time and costs. Moreover, students were
more motivated to study if there were links between training and
future jobs. Much of the training could be done at existing
enterprises, where staff and equipment was available at little
additional cost.
There were some disadvantages to this system, however. Under
the Four Modernizations, technically trained generalists were
needed more than highly specialized technicians. Also, highly
specialized equipment and staff were underused, and there was an
overall shortage of specialized facilities to conduct training. In
addition, large expenses were incurred in providing the necessary
facilities and staff, and the trend in some government technical
agencies was toward more general technical and vocational
education.
Further, the dropout rate continued to have a negative effect
on the labor pool as upper-secondary-school technical students
dropped out and as the percentage of lower-secondary-school
graduates entering the labor market without job training increased.
Occupational rigidity and the geographic immobility of the
population, particularly in rural areas, further limited
educational choices.
Although there were 668,000 new polytechnic school enrollments
in 1985, the Seventh Five-Year Plan called for annual increases of
2 million mid-level skilled workers and 400,000 senior technicians,
indicating that enrollment levels were still far from sufficient.
To improve the situation, in July 1986 officials from the State
Education Commission, State Planning Commission, and Ministry of
Labor and Personnel convened a national conference on developing
China's technical and vocational education. It was decided that
technical and vocational education in rural areas should
accommodate local conditions and be conducted on a short-term
basis. Where conditions permitted, emphasis would be placed on
organizing technical schools and short-term training classes. To
alleviate the shortage of teachers, vocational and technical
teachers' colleges were to be reformed and other colleges and
universities were to be mobilized for assistance. The State Council
decision to improve training for workers who had passed technical
examinations (as opposed to unskilled workers) was intended to
reinforce the development of vocational and technical schools.
Data as of July 1987
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