Dalian fosters vocational training development

China is working to better integrate vocational and general education as part of a broader effort to cultivate more high-quality technical and skilled workers, with provinces deepening industry-education cooperation in recent years.

"Developing vocational education and cultivating technically skilled workers that match society's production needs is a practical task," said Wang Qiyao, a deputy to the National People's Congress and head of the Standing Committee of the Dalian Municipal People's Congress in Liaoning province.

Wang called for accelerating the integration of vocational and general education, improving the vocational education talent training system and providing students with more diverse pathways for growth and development.

"We need to enhance the top-level design of this integration, summarize practical experiences nationwide, enrich implementation plans and policies, and formulate specific measures at the local level to effectively promote the integration," Wang said.

He also emphasized the need to explore practical approaches, including fostering collaboration between regular high schools, vocational schools and enterprises, through curriculum cooperation and resource sharing.

Dalian has placed modern vocational education at the forefront of its development agenda, establishing a sound policy system, optimizing vocational education classification and advancing industry-education integration. The northeastern port city has launched eight vocational education groups in sectors such as equipment manufacturing, electronic information, modern services and smart healthcare to better serve industrial development.

"We should break the development ceiling for vocational school students by supporting vocational colleges in piloting undergraduate vocational education majors or upgrading to vocational undergraduate institutions," Wang said. "We should encourage undergraduate institutions to take on more vocational education responsibilities and vigorously develop graduate-level vocational education."

Dalian is working to integrate vocational and general education resources, linking vocational and technical colleges with open universities. The city has established one national-level demonstration higher vocational college, 10 national-level demonstration secondary vocational schools and 43 national-level vocational education training bases, with two more higher vocational colleges in the pipeline.

To align vocational majors with industry needs, the local government has launched measures to promote school-enterprise cooperation, creating 63 regional industry-education integration practice centers across the city. Six of these have been recognized as national model cases, and Jinpu New Area has been designated as one of China's first national-level city industry-education alliances — the only one in Liaoning province.

Wang urged continued improvements to the management system for industry-education integration, the formulation of national plans for top-tier secondary vocational schools and majors, and better utilization of industry associations to enhance vocational education.

"We should empower new quality productive forces through high-quality vocational education, implement digital transformation in curriculum teaching and comprehensively integrate digital technology into vocational education," he said.