Vocational school vs university: China’s education dilemma
As China’s giant economy recovers from the pandemic, vocational students are losing out to university graduates in the race for the best jobs.
Many high-tech companies set thresholds for their vacancies. For example, job applicants must graduate with a bachelor’s degree, and some technology companies even require universities in China’s top 100 universities (referred to as 211 in China).
In Chinese higher education, schools are broadly categorised from highest to lowest: major universities, undergraduate universities and vocational schools.
In fact, vocational education has provided a large amount of talent for China’s economic construction. However, due to historical reasons, many employers regard vocational school students with prejudice and think that they are a group of ignorant people.
Companies treat vocational school graduates with disdain, and this makes it difficult for them to find a job.
Is it true that in China’s employment environment, vocational school leavers are not as good as undergraduates?
Shenzhen Vocational College of Information Technology ranks ninth in the competitiveness ranking of China’s higher vocational colleges. In the past 10 years, the graduation destination implementation rate of previous graduates has remained above 98%.
After graduating from this school, Guo Donglai, a student majoring in Internet of Things application technology, worked as an engineer for Huawei’s whole-house smart project. He said: “Job hunting is indeed a headache for college students, but our school and Huawei jointly opened a Huawei ICT academy. I passed school-enterprise cooperation recruits to participate in training for one month, and entered the job after a six-month internship at Huawei and passing the assessment.”
The school not only provides graduates with professionally-matched positions, but also has a strong correlation between the school courses and job content, such as quality management and e-marketing courses.
The establishment of enterprise cooperation projects also invites teachers from Huawei to give lectures and interact with students, telling them how to effectively transform school theoretical knowledge into workplace applications.
Wang Hui, the principal of the school, said: “The school’s education conglomerate conducts scientific planning in terms of major setting, curriculum connection, and management mode to improve teaching quality.”
The school trains people for the needs of the industry and opens new professions according to the saturation level of the job market, which will solve the problem of the talent gap in the market in the future. All people will work hard for their future and a high level of education does not mean having absolute competitiveness.
Feature image by Bright