China is currently focusing strongly on developing its vocational education and training system, and Germany is an important partner in this process: many German companies operate major manufacturing sites in China and need highly skilled employees. So do German companies in China continue to meet their training needs through the familiar German model of vocational education and training (or a similar model)? Or does their model for training production staff more closely resemble the Chinese model? To date, there have been few research studies in this area. This article aims to fill the gap with a 'home international' comparison of the training strategies of Chinese and German companies in China. Theory-driven semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of human resources departments in 11 Chinese companies and 11 subsidiaries of German companies in China. Transcripts of these interviews were then subjected to textual analysis to systematize the findings and extract data. The findings demonstrate both similarities and differences between the Chinese and the German companies, particularly in terms of the links between the national training system, the national labour market and the social setting.

China is experiencing an unprecedented phenomenon: breakneck industrialization on a scale and at a pace not seen before. It is trying to achieve in just a few decades what Western nations took more than a century to do. The arrival in the country’s cities of tens of millions of rural dwellers, at most semi-skilled, has put huge strain on the country’s system of vocational education, known as TVET. How have the Chinese authorities and their education administrators responded? Is China’s TVET system adapting to the rapidly evolving needs of its industry? Using the province of Yunnan as a subject, this detailed case study is a closely argued and sanguine analysis of the operation of TVET in China. The authors deployed a set of internationally comparable criteria to offer a searching assessment of current performance, at the same time documenting areas of strength and weakness. The question the authors’ methodology answers is how well China’s TVET system is performing compared to technical and vocational education structures in other countries. In fact, they discover that in Yunnan, a province representative of the challenges faced nationwide, much has indeed been done, from a wholesale overhaul of programs to make them relevant to industry requirements, to major investment in infrastructure. Teacher training has been reformed, and take-up of professional master’s and doctoral courses has been encouraged. Joint initiatives with bodies such as UNESCO have improved training and vocational education at high school level. While there is a strong international history of such comparative evaluations, which are essential for policy makers to benchmark their administration, few studies have included China despite the enormous amount of value that can be learned from that country’s experience. This work will provide vital material for researchers, governments and development agencies alike.

This book offers a new perspective on the transnational dimensions of China’s educational and economic history by focusing on Sino-German interactions in the field of vocational education. It explores how Chinese perceptions of manual work, vocational skills, and educational practices changed dramatically throughout the first half of the twentieth century as Chinese educators increased their efforts to study and translate German pedagogical writings. Case studies researched in this book illustrate how a Chinese appreciation for German technological and scientific advances and German interests in profiting from a growing Chinese economy are not just recent phenomena but have their roots in the early twentieth century.

China is reforming its vocational and technical education and training to meet the skilled labor requirements of a changing economy.

This book provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of research on technical and vocational education in China. It discusses various aspects that range from such conventional topics as teaching at different levels, development history, regulations, policies, curriculum, specialty setup, teaching, faculty and management; to the status quo, transformation and current trends; as well as quantity expansion and quality improvement, all of which highlight the unique characteristics of technical and vocational education in China. This book is intended for researchers and graduate students, and will also help international readers to grasp the general situation regarding technical and vocational education in China. Combining rich content and a broad scope, the book will undoubtedly offer a valuable key to understanding China’s technical and vocational education in the 21st century.

The school-to-work transition has been an important topic in the fields of education and sociology research in the past few years. Pre-vocational education, which takes place during lower-secondary school and aims to facilitate the school-to-work transition, is of critical significance in introducing the participants to the world of work and/or in preparing them for entry into further vocational education programs. With a strong comparative nature, Jun Li presents this systematic investigation of the pre-vocational education in Germany and China and analyzes their curricula of pre-vocational education. By combining the methods of content analysis and teacher interview, the author offers an in-depth perspective into the realms of pre-vocational education and reveals the divergences between the prescribed curriculum and the enacted curriculum. The findings also relate closely to an intensively discussed issue in the sociology of education in the past few years, namely the issue of knowledge and its status, function and forms in the school education today.

This report, which describes a study conducted through a literature search and a two-month visit to the People's Republic of China, is organized in three parts. In the first part, the general situation and historical development of the Chinese education system is discussed. Topics include the structural features of the country, party and state, population distribution and development, level of education, the socioeconomic framework, historical development, philosophical roots, the state bureaucracy and examination system, craft guilds and apprenticeships, development of a public education system, and the education system since the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The second section of the report examines structures and problems. These include the education system in the early 1980s, vocational education, adult education, vocational education teachers, competencies and forms of cooperation, financing, and characteristics of the Chinese employment system. The final section of the report presents 18 recommendations to improve vocational education and job training in China. A list of terms used in the study is given in English and Chinese, and a table presents statistics on Chinese schools and universities from 1949 to 1983. (KC)