Vocational schools need reforming

China is striving for a transition to a service-oriented economy. But is it ready? Does it have the workers trained in the right skills?

Data from 2010 show that, while restaurants hired more than 6 million chefs, only 60,000 people, or 1 percent of the size of the job market, had studied the culinary arts in the country's vocational schools. In an even more striking contrast, while there are as many as 1.6 million companies registered as providers of temporary workers to help with the household chores, the enrollment of domestic service majors by intermediate vocational schools was no more than 5,000.

Who is failing China's chance of future development?

The Chinese media has pointed its finger at the country's archaic system of vocational education, where two main problems have been identified: the obsolete government administration and poor connection with job market realities.

Commenting on the overall situation, Zhang Lixin, an official from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said, in the job market for skilled labor, for every three vacancies there are only two qualified applicants.

And things are even worse at the senior technician level, half of the vacancies remain unfilled.

Not everyone with adequate funding can run a school in China. The government still doesn't welcome it - however strong the economy's demand for skilled labor and the central government's yearning for a successful transition from quantity to quality.

The approval procedure on establishing vocational schools is, according to Zhang Chunfeng, director of the higher education research center in Heilongjiang Agricultural Economy Vocational College, a remnant from the Soviet-type planned economy of half a century ago.

Also school principals are often government appointees, who answer solely to the educational department, not to the faculty and the students. And they usually are concerned with how to get promoted quickly and be appointed to manage a larger school or to sit in a more important office.