Promote Quality Vocational Education
Ya Yan文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
Vocational education is gaining increasing attention. Employers scramble to vocational school graduates with strong technical skills. Many students get job offers before graduation. Stories about the marketability of vocational school graduates keep popping up on social media. Statistics show that vocational school graduates have consistently boasted a high employment rate over the past five years: about 90% for post-secondary vocational school graduates and about 95% for secondary vocational school graduates within six months of graduation.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
As vocational school graduates become sought after in the job market, the benefits of a vocational education are brought to the fore. In recent years, the vocational education sector has been thriving thanks to its focus on enhancing its relevance by better aligning training programs with changing economic and social development needs and incorporating more real-world skills.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
As a key pillar of the national education system and the national human resource development strategy, vocational education is crucial for workforce training in a diverse array of skills in demand, including entrepreneurial skills. A clear understanding of the importance of quality vocational education is essential to its development.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
On the one hand, vocational training helps talent growth. As individuals have distinct personality traits, interests, and talents, their paths to self-development are not the same. Vocational training expands an individual’s options to develop their skills and talents. On the other hand, vocational training responds to the need for diverse talent in social and economic development. As our country has entered a new stage of development, with industrial upgrading and economic restructuring picking up the pace, the urgency of meeting the demand for technical and skilled personnel has become increasingly apparent. Developing vocational education provides a timely solution to a structural impediment to matching labor supply to economic and social development needs. The existing mismatch has left some jobs unfilled while others are flooded with applications.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
Public perception is another issue, of course. General education remains a popular choice for many, whereas the bias against vocational education persists. At the same time, technological advances together with the emergence of new employment opportunities call for new approaches to vocational training.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/14767.html
Within the education sector, vocational education faces a number of obstacles that have to be addressed. For example, the way in which students are funneled into either general or vocational schooling leaves room for improvement. Vocational programs should be more focused on industry-specific courses. The development of vocational education should go hand in hand with that of general education. Another culprit responsible for some schools' lackluster performance is their failure to stay in synch with job market trends, resulting in skills mismatch. This underscores the importance of incorporating real-world skills in demand into training programs.
Moreover, the issue of promoting vocational education has to be dealt with in a larger context. A whole-of-society approach is required. Efforts in this connection include improving the status of technical school graduates and creating better conditions for vocational education. In a circular issued not long ago, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security urges respect for the right of vocational college graduates to apply for jobs in public institutions through a fair and open competitive process, as part of the move to support the development of vocational education.
We are confident that consistent efforts to strengthen quality vocational education will lead to more success stories about the power of life-changing technical training.
（蔡力坚 译）
