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The Chinese Government has very ambitious dreams of providing high quality and abundant education to the population.  These dreams are slowly becoming reality through both policy and legal changes – and this is changing the labour landscape of China.  The information discussed below is critical if you are thinking about expanding your business in China - it shows the changing landscape of the labour pool.

Up until the 1980’s, education was not common in China - the wealthy and well connected received higher education, while the rest of the population was lucky if they received 6 to 10 years of education, but the Ministry of Education is changing this through the education law.  This all started in 1986, when the Government of China created the Compulsory Education Law of China (CELC), which guaranteed school-age children the right to receive education, specifically a 9 year program, with 6 years in elementary school and 3 years in middle school.  On September 1, 2006, the law was amended to ensure that children in both urban and rural china received 9 years of free compulsory education, with all costs being covered by both local and central government agencies.  The amendment also has two changes to help ensure education becomes widespread to China’s youth:

1. Any local government which does not pay for the compulsory education will be disciplined.
2. Teachers in urban schools must also work in rural schools for a certain period of time to help balance the inadequate rural education resources.

These changes were made because it was discovered that children in rural settings were not receiving the education they were entitled to.

As you can see, there has been a shift in focus from educating those in urban centers, to educating those in both urban and rural centers, with a heavy emphasis on information technology education.  The Ministry wants the internet in over 90% of all classrooms by 2010.

This is a huge shift in thinking within China.  Traditionally, rural areas received very little attention, and there was a very obvious divide between the levels of education in rural versus urban areas - everyone wanted to be in urban areas, this is where the future of China lay.  The best teachers were located in urban centers, the best schools were located in urban centers, and the majority of funding was located in urban centers – so it is no surprise that the most educated students came from the urban areas. 

This change in policy to focus on both urban and rural areas is part of the plan to help address the growing divide between the rich and the poor in China – and you shouldn’t have any misconceptions, this growing divide will be a major problem for the Chinese economy if it is not addressed in the near future.

To give you some background about the Chinese education system, I provide the following excerpt from a paper I was working on:

The Chinese education system is broken up into three categories, basic, higher, and adult education.  Basic education consists of pre-school education (ages 3 to 6), primary education (ages 7 to 12), and regular secondary education (ages 13 to 18).  Secondary education is further divided into two categories, academic secondary education and specialized/vocational/technical secondary education.

Higher education programs include offerings in both academic and vocational subjects in the form of 2 and 3 year junior college programs or 3 and 4 year undergraduate programs.  Colleges and universities also offer a wide variety of postgraduate master programs and PhDs.  

Adult education contains primary, secondary, and higher education offerings.  Adult primary education includes workers’ primary schools, peasants’ primary schools, and literacy classes.  Adult secondary education consists of specialized secondary schools for radio/TV, cadres, staff, workers, peasants, in-service teacher training, and correspondence education.  Finally, adult higher education consists of radio/TV universities, cadre institutes, workers’ college, peasants’ college, correspondence college, and educational college, with most programs taking 2 to 3 years to complete.

The rapid advancement of the Chinese economy has created an urgency to train people in foreign languages (such as English), computer skills, information technology, business/management, customer service, and security.

Additionally, there has been an increase in funding for vocational training programs.  The reason for this is due to the lack of abundent “white collar” jobs available in China, so vocational training gives both the unemployed, and recent university graduates the necessary skills to obtain employment. 

Due to the increasing number of rural citizens moving into urban areas, the large number of laid-off workers, and the inability of recent university graduates to secure jobs, vocational training centers have become increasingly popular in China.  These centers are providing hands on training to help students secure a position in one of the many trade jobs available within China today.  Additionally, vocational training in China is aimed at helping workers leave the low-income low-skill loop by educating students about market and competition awareness as well as providing business start-up competence.

Vocational training programs in China include pre-employment training, training for people transferred to new occupations, apprentice training and on-the-job training, consisting of elementary, intermediary, and advanced training.  Current training centers include both government and non-government sponsored schools and offer both short and long term programs.

In 2003, there were 3465 governmental employment training centers, and 17350 non-governmental training institutions offering education to over 10.7 million people.  Additionally, there were 3200 technical schools serving 4.1 million students, with 274 schools being taught at the advanced level.  A majority of the vocational institutes are located in small villages across China.

According to a 2005 report released by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MLSS), over the next five years 40 million migrant workers from rural areas will receive free job training as part of China’s overall vocational training program.  Additionally, from 2006 to 2010, the MLSS will train 7 million technical workers, 1.9 million technicians, provide vocational training to 20 million laid-off workers, and provide vocational qualification assessments to over 50 million people.

As of October 1, 2006, Chinese regulations have been changed to allow foreign firms to invest in vocational institutes within China, an area that was previously not open to foreign investment.  Additionally, over the next five years the central government has committed CDN $1.5 billion on infrastructure improvements for vocational education and local governments are expected to invest more than CDN $3 billion during the same period.

My personal belief is that vocational training is an often overlooked, but important opportunity to university graduates in China.  Many students are graduating from university, only to find a lack of employment.  Some of these graduates are willing to stay unemployed for several years in order to find a job that matches their education - in the West, this would be career suicide.  By investing in vocational training, these unemployed graduates have a better chance of finding employment, which will hopefully lead to a career.

Finally, you might want to take a look at my other article on the Chinese Education Market. 

*Sources are available upon request

I’m back in Toronto for the next few weeks.  If you want to call me, my number is 416-434-8717.