Vocational School Vital to Public EducationChina's vocational education is playing an increasingly important role in improving the education quality of millions of Chinese people, according to an official report released Monday.The country's various levels and different types of vocational education have trained millions of people facing employment pressures and challenges, the 1999 annual report said. Although only ten percent of China's total funds for education was earmarked for vocational education in 1999, the number of vocational schools accounted for more than half of the total higher learning institutes across the country and students enrolled in these vocational schools made up 60 percent of the total number of students enrolled in higher learning institutes. Some 70 percent of Chinese people have received education at above the junior high school level in a booming vocational education school system, China Daily reported Tuesday. By the end of 1999, 1,345 vocational schools have been set up throughout China, including 817 institutes of higher learning for adults, 313 technical schools and 161 schools for graduates of junior high schools below the age of 16. More than 398,000 students were studying at vocational technical schools in 1999. Over the past year, more than 123,400 adults enrolled in vocational colleges and more than 40,000 graduates got jobs. These facts show that a vocational training framework is taking shape, according to experts from the Central Institute of Vocational and Technical Education. China's existing national education network also provides vocational training courses for the country's over 5.1 million unemployed workers of state-owned enterprises. |
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