Chinese sector expansion focuses on vocational training

The rapid expansion of China’s post-secondary education sector is increasingly leaning towards vocational education, new figures show.

According to the latest list of higher education institutions released by China’s Ministry of Education, there were 2,820 universities and colleges (excluding adult colleges) in the country at the end of May this year. Compared with the same period last year, the total has gone up by 61, including 56 new higher vocational colleges and five new universities teaching at undergraduate level or above. Between 2018 and 2022, a total of 128 institutions were built.

“The current policy suggests that the Chinese government will continue to expand higher education and increase enrolment rates,” said Futao Huang, professor of higher education at Hiroshima University. “But only expanding universities and colleges that emphasise academic research requires more investment and makes it more difficult for graduates of these institutions of vocational and technical education to find jobs.”

Professor Huang noted that in many Asian countries, including Japan, the establishment of new short-term and four-year vocational and technical institutions had been a common solution to this problem, and China was no exception.

Last month, a spokesperson of the National Development and Reform Commission said at a conference that the country planned to build around 200 higher vocational colleges and application-oriented universities, according to the interim adjustment of the country’s 14th five-year plan, covering the period 2021 to 2025.

In the past few years, local authorities have invested in vocational education by switching existing research universities to application-oriented institutions. Jiangxi province plans to make two thirds of undergraduate institutions application-oriented by 2025.

However, Professor Huang said he did not think the trend would change Chinese students’ study choices much.

“Unlike other countries such as Japan, China’s vocational-technical colleges and universities are not articulated with other four-year, traditionally academically oriented universities, especially at the graduate level. In other words, students from applied undergraduate institutions find it difficult to transfer to other non-vocational-technical four-year universities, and even more difficult to enter graduate school after graduation,” he said.

Another factor was the social stigma around vocational education, he added. “Chinese society as a whole considers the level of vocational and technical colleges and universities, including applied universities, to be low, and the students who enter these colleges and universities are basically those who have difficulty in passing the university entrance exams to be admitted to non-vocational and technical colleges and universities,” Professor Huang said.

karen.liu@timeshighereducation.com