China's vocational education has made big strides in the past several decades, and there are now 4,400 schools compared with only four in the 1950s.

About 700,000 students are graduated yearly and are employed in such industries as machinery, electronics, aviation and railways.

The trained technicians are fresh blood injected continuously into the veins of China's economy, said an official with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

Vocational schools also play an important role in helping 10 million laid-off workers from China's State-owned enterprises to regain employment.

The ministry will help train 10 million layoffs in the coming three years, and at present, 6.09 million laid-off workers thus trained have been re-employed.

The high-quality of the schools' students has caught the attention of more and more Chinese companies which often sent their staff to the schools for re-training.

In today's market economy, China's vocational schools have become more responsive to social needs than they were in the planned economy, the official said. (Xinhua)