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Chinese PM Chairs State Council Meeting on Vocational Education

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 21 September: China's State Council, the highest governing body, passed a decision on Wednesday [21 September] to greatly boost vocational education. The executive meeting, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, stressed out that to develop vocational education is important to improving China's industrial production, raising farmers' income and boosting employment. The meeting set a target to raise the annual enrolment of intermediate-level vocational education schools to 8 million in 2010, or roughly the same as that of regular senior high schools. That constitutes a big increase over the enrolment of some 5 million in 2003.

The annual enrolment of vocational education colleges, according to the meeting, should account for more than 50 per cent of the total enrolment of colleges and universities by 2010. The number of undergraduate students in vocational colleges stood at 4.8 million in 2003, only 42 per cent of that in regular institutions of higher learning. The meeting also spelled out major tasks in this field, including reforming the teaching practices, raising the quality of teachers and enhancing educational level of vocational education institutions.

Chinese factories have experienced shortage of skilled workers in recent years. The problem is partly caused by China's fast economic growth and the imbalanced educational structure.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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