Pioneer finds himself in the mainstream

Vocational education specialist says skilled workforce is vital for growth

Yang Ke, a usually unassuming educationist, is perhaps surprised to suddenly find himself at center stage.

Vocational training, his specialization, is no longer the backwater area that many assumed it to be.

It shot up the agenda in May when the government announced it was to increase the number of vocational places across China by a third from the present 29.34 million to 38.3 million by 2020.

Having a more skilled workforce is seen as vital if the Chinese economy is to move from low to higher-end manufacturing and to be more service sector-led.

"Vocational education is becoming a strategically vital component of the transformation of the economic growth model and is also playing an important role in boosting employment. There is now huge interest in it," he says.

Yang, a member of the central government's vocational education reform committee and who has been involved in the training sector for about 30 years, was speaking early in the morning in a Costa Coffee outlet near Shenyang North Railway Station.

He had taken the overnight train after lecturing on the government's new policy the night before in Beijing. Later that day he was to make a five-hour train journey to Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province to give another talk.

"I seem to be in demand," he says. "I admit to sometimes feeling tired. I once even went to seven cities within just three days."

Yang, who was recuperating over his morning tea after sleeping on the train, says it was an interesting challenge to be involved in the subject that is now on many people's lips.

"I feel very excited to be playing a role in the process of the reform of vocational education. There are so many unprecedented opportunities for vocational training to take off now."

Shenyang was designated as one of China's vocational training pilot areas in 2010, and it is through such training the government hopes people will have the skills so the city can move away from its heavy-engineering past into newer industries.

Yang, who is also the principal of two leading Shenyang vocational training schools, Shenyang Machinery Industrial Workers University and Shenyang Equipment Manufacturing Technique School, says the government is right to make a priority of vocational training to deliver the skills the economy now needs.

"The current system of short-term training, secondary vocational training and higher vocational education can no longer meet the demands of an economy that is going through dramatic transformation and industry upgrading. We need many more skilled high-level people to go on to the next level," he says.

The government's new policy was embodied in the State Council's Decisions on Advancing the Development of Modern Vocational Education guideline issued in May.

This paved the way for more vocational training funding, curricula reforms, encouraging partnerships between vocational schools and employers and reforming the governance of vocational schools so more stakeholders are involved.

The new level of importance attached to vocational education was emphasized again at a special meeting convened in Beijing in June that Premier Li Keqiang attended.

"I think all these measures will lead to development of a modern system of vocational training in China at all levels," Yang says. "The important thing is to integrate what is taught with the practical needs of industry. In all though this is a very positive sign for the further development of vocational education across the country."

Yang, who was born in Shenyang and graduated from Qingdao Chemical and Engineering School, where he majored in high-polymer science, has been very much at the forefront of the development of vocational education in Shenyang, which is seen as a beacon in this area for the rest of the country.

He began as a teacher at Shenyang Chemical and Engineering School in 1986 and became its director in 1991, interrupted by a spell in the local authority's chemical and engineering bureau.

In 2000, he played a major role in the reform of vocational training across the municipality when he became director of the Shenyang Vocational and Adult Education Research Institute, supervising the consolidation of the 32 schools into nine major training centers.

"The reforms we had to make were designed to meet the demands of Shenyang's industrial and economic development as a whole, which is kind of similar to what the whole nation is facing today."

Yang says it was not all plain sailing and that he faced opposition from those who felt they might lose out from the reforms.

"The reforms faced some opposition and many challenges, because different districts of Shenyang city were responsible for the governance of the schools and wanted to preserve some of the benefits of that structure," he says.

"Yet no matter how hard it was, the reform in my view was both necessary and inevitable to make vocational education better serve the development of the city."

The new system linked each new school to a specific industry so there are ones relating to equipment manufacturing, information technology and services among other categories.

"All these industries are the pillar industries of Shenyang, and the new schools have provided strong support for their development."

Yang was keen to see how Chinese vocational education differed from that in the West - he and a group of seven vice-directors of vocational training schools in Shenyang went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US in 2002 to spend a year studying the differences between the US and Chinese education systems.

"It was quite an eye-opening process. We all felt there was a difference between the two education systems. Whereas the Chinese system had strength in the traditional disciplines there was more emphasis in the US on students being able to think for themselves and innovate," he says.

Yang, who had studied at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Technische Universitat Berlin in 2001, was also keen to develop links with Germany, a country with a strong record in vocational training.

One of the first opportunities to do this was when BMW Brilliance Automotive, a Shenyang-based joint venture between the German car company and the local Brilliance Auto, was setting up a new factory. Some 60 students from local vocational schools were sent to train for up to 10 weeks.

"This was really effective. The students were exposed to German vocational training methods, and it proved a quick way from to learn," he says.

Yang says vocational training is now a much broader concept than training people to operate machines but also includes equipping people for careers in catering, tourism, the arts and the leisure industry.

"If you take such areas as the service industry, it could include golf course maintenance and also even modeling in fashion exhibitions. It could be training for the arts such as stage management and lighting in theaters."

Those who go through vocational training now frequently earn more than college graduates, he says.

"Those, for example, who train as welders can earn between 8,000 (990 euros, $1,300) and 10,000 yuan a month, if you include bonuses. A college graduate might just earn 2,000 yuan a month.

"It is difficult to generalize, but you shouldn't assume that a college graduate will always get the higher paid job."

Yang says vocational training gives people from disadvantaged backgrounds access to careers they might not normally have. About 70 percent of vocational training students are from rural China.

In 13 provinces, tuition is free for secondary vocational training, and the subsidies are available at vocational schools across China.

"It addresses the problem that many students with poor family backgrounds are not as good academically, and vocational training provides them with a career path and the ability to lead a better life in the city."

Yang hopes Shenyang will prove something of a blueprint for the development of vocational training across China.

"Shenyang is a miniature of China. I think we have shown that vocational education will play a bigger role in the nation's economic, social and education system."

Contact the writers through huhaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn

Wu Yong and Liu Ce contributed to the story.

(China Daily European Weekly 09/05/2014 page9)