Off target: China’s vocational education and training system threatens the country’s rise to industrial superpower status

Abstract

Vocational education and training (VET) is the Achilles' heel of the restructuring of the Chinese economic model. With the “Made in China 2025” strategy, China wants to transform into an innovation-driven industrial nation. This can only be achieved with a highly qualified workforce. Reform of the VET system is long overdue. Only if China succeeds in establishing a system that can be adapted to the changing requirements of companies will the dream of its political leaders to make the country an industrial superpower materialise