China plans modern vocational education

The State Council, China's cabinet, met on Wednesday to discuss deploying a modern vocational education program to improve the quality of the country's vast labor force and increase employment. Presided over by Premier Li Keqiang, the meeting agreed that developing the program is a strategic move for economic transformation and improvement of people's wellbeing. The Chinese government has advocated a contemporary vocational education that will help nurture tens of millions of engineers, technical workers and "open the gates of success to young people," according to a statement from the meeting. It will also enhance market competitiveness of products made in China and help upgrade the Chinese economy, the statement said. The meeting also outlined measures to strengthen vocational education, including giving vocational schools more independence and developing a talent cultivation mechanism under which schools and the enterprises jointly recruit and teach students. It called for authorities to encourage youngsters to grasp a specific skill rather than only have a diploma, and saw discussion of how to attract more non-governmental investment into the field. The State Council also reviewed and passed a draft regulation on human resources departments in public institutions, which is aimed at improving their efficiency and better serving the public.