TIANJIN: In recent years, China's vocational education system has supplied an average of almost 10 million skilled workers to various industries each year, according to a white paper released on Saturday.
The white paper on China's vocational education was issued at the 2026 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference in Tianjin Municipality in north China, which ran from Thursday to Saturday this week.
The white paper revealed that the average length of education among China's newly added skilled personnel had reached 14.35 years.
In 2025, 5.82 million students graduated from higher vocational education institutions, while nearly 5.22 million graduated from secondary vocational schools, the white paper said.
China has the world's largest vocational education system, with 9,151 secondary vocational schools, 1,554 higher vocational colleges and 124 vocational undergraduate institutions.
Higher vocational institutions account for more than half of the country's higher education institutions. In addition, 52 regular higher education institutions offer vocational undergraduate programs.
As of the end of 2025, China's catalogue of vocational education majors covered 19 major categories, 97 categories and 1,491 majors, spanning virtually all sectors of the national economy and all 41 major industrial categories.
At the Tianjin conference's closing ceremony, 45 countries jointly released the Framework of World Vocational and Technical Education Standards, whose development was led by China.
The framework calls for improving vocational school systems, establishing a lifelong education and training system for all, developing teaching materials through industry-education collaboration, building teaching teams via school-enterprise partnerships, and using AI to drive reform in education and teaching.
China's Ministry of Education also unveiled four national standards for Luban Workshops at the closing ceremony.
They cover development requirements, teaching equipment requirements and operational quality assessment, among others. These standards will take effect on April 1, 2027.
Luban Workshops are overseas vocational education projects jointly established by Chinese and foreign educational institutions, offering academic programs and skills training.
China has established 38 Luban Workshops in 32 countries, providing academic education to more than 30,000 students and skills training to over 160,000 participants.- Xinhua
