Case Study on Attractiveness of Vocational Education from Student's Perspective
VTE English Edition - VTE English Edition NO.2, 2010


By Li Hongwei

Question Raising Since the reform and opening-up, the development of vocational education in China is on the rise overall except temporary slowdown at the turn of the century. In recent years, with the deep concern and great attention from the central government of China, many favorable policies for developing vocational education have been released, which provided unprecedented opportunity for its further growth. However, because of various kinds of reasons, vocational education is still the weak part of the whole education system, the social status of vocational education is still not high and accepting vocational education is still a compelling choice for students. The lack of attractiveness of vocational education has aroused great attention of Chinese leaders. On Jan 4, 2009, the speech of Premier Wen Jiabao on the Conference of National Science and Technology Heading Group was issued with full text by the website of the central government titled as "Education is the Basis of Our Long-term Development Strategy". In his speech, Premier Wen Jiabao required that "to enhance the attractiveness of vocational education by studying specific guidance methods". On Jan 7, the Leading Group Office for "National Medium and Long-term Planning Outline for Educational Reform and Development (2010-2020)" launched the work of consulting for society, and “how to enhance the attractiveness of vocational education" was one of the twenty important issues. After this, the attractiveness of vocational education became a popular topic discussed by various groups of society. "Research on Enhancing the Attractiveness of Vocational Education" was listed as a key research project of the Ministry of Education of the National "11th five year planning" of educational science.

Annex