Even as China’s prowess in critical technologies is acknowledged widely in the world, the
country is overwhelmingly lacking in skilled manpower who could plug a gaping hole in its
industrial sector, struggling to find pace with the demand of time.
By 2025, China is going to face a shortage of 30 million skilled workers in the manufacturing
sector, the country’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security recently warned. With
China’s vocational educational system continuing to remain far from getting social respect,
specialised teachers and encouragement from the corporate sector, the country is staring at a
huge shortage of skilled workers in the manufacturing sector.
In its report in 2022, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security identified 100
sectors that face the most severe labour shortages in China. Of them, 41 were in the
manufacturing sector, China Daily said.
Worried about yawning gap between demand and supply of skilled manpower in the industrial
sector amid a rapidly aging population in the country, the People’s Daily, a flagship newspaper
of the Communist Party of China, in its editorial in the first week of May, 2023 said improving
the population’s skills would provide a solid foundation for “building a modern socialist
country comprehensively and rejuvenating it. It would also be critical for advancing future
economic growth.”
But among China’s millennials, there is no craze for vocational education as those coming out
of vocational institutes are paid less and have no respect from friends and relatives. To
encourage wider social acceptability of vocational education, the Chinese government in May
2022 brought a parity between vocational education and general education system by
introducing a Vocational Education Law.
As per the law, vocational school graduates will enjoy equal education and career opportunities
as general education graduates in the country. Yet a considerable gap remains at the income
level. The average monthly income of fresh graduates with vocational education degrees in
China in 2023 was 4,595 yuan (US$643), compared with 5,990 yuan for those with bachelor’s
degrees, said a survey by Beijing-based consulting firm MyCos.
In fact, in the country where society puts pressure on young people to find a good job, buy an
apartment and get married, vocational education remains a distant option especially among
urban youth.
In his paper on ‘The Challenges and Dilemmas of Vocational Education in China,’ ZijingGuo,
a researcher at Modern Languages University of Southampton in the UK, links such attitude in
the Chinese society with the Confucian tradition where emphasis is laid on mental work over
physical work.
Majority of Chinese parents discourage their children from joining vocational institutes as they
do not add to their social prestige, South China Morning Post said. As a result, China’s
educational system produces more than 5 million graduates every year even as they struggle to
find employment.
In some provinces, administrative officials’ apathy towards vocational training institutes in
terms of their funding on a regular basis and non-arrangement of specialised teachers are also
proving as barriers in creating a large pool of skilled workforce in China. According to China
Daily, quality and expertise aside, several vocational schools simply lack enough teachers due
to low pay and low social status.
China has a plan to bring about reforms in the vocational education system with focus on
building “skill-based society,” especially for strategic emerging industries such as information
technology and smart manufacturing as well as service industries like elderly care and
childcare.
In June last year, as many as eight ministries led by the National Development and Reform
Commission issued an action plan on reforms in the vocational educational system. But more
than seven months have passed, and the status of the said action plan on reforms in vocational
education is yet to be known, the Hong Kong-based English daily newspaper said.
The key issue confronting Chinese authorities in strengthening vocational education in the
country is not just non-availability of enough youth for teaching but also there is a huge dearth
of teachers.
The Chinese government in early 2020 issued an order that vocational schools should recruit
for their teaching faculty those who have spent a minimum three years in factories. However,
institutes across the country are not able to find sufficient numbers of such experienced men or
women who could agree to become vocational teachers. Last year, there were only 610,000
teachers, whereas the number of students were as many as around 16.7 million in vocational
schools in China, said China Daily.
Xi Lao is a freelance journalist based in Taiwan.
