Rising demand for vocational schools
Print Edition
A SEA change was happening in the local education field with meritorious students of high grades seeking admission to vocational schools.
In a radio interview yesterday, Shanghai vice mayor Weng Tiehui said that a pilot program that allows students to finish vocational and university in 7 straight years was proving extremely popular with as many as 10,000 middle school graduates applying for just 1,000 seats this year.
“It is great to see so many students with high graduation scores that is good enough for popular high schools applying,” said Weng, who is responsible for education in the city. “The highest score of one of the applicant, Ma Xufeng, was 590 — almost 100 points higher than the minimum for high schools.”
Ma, a graduate of Yan’an Middle School, applied for a project to study mechanical engineering for three years at the Shanghai Industrial Technical School and then four years at the Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, although his high scores could guarantee a position for him in one of the most prestigious high schools in the city, according to Weng.
Weng said Ma applied for the vocational program without hesitation and with the support from his parents as he has always loved playing with machines.
The program was initiated in 2014 offering enrollment of 120 students to study three majors. It was expanded to 1,000 with 26 majors this year to give students another option besides high schools and universities.
Chinese families usually prefer high schools as a route to enter good universities. Those with poor academic grades turn to vocational schools.
Under the trial program, a participating vocational school can cooperate with a university to recruit students. If their academic results and vocational skills are good after three years they can enter the cooperating university without taking the college entrance exam.
Weng said Chinese parents were wrong in believing that only universities could offer bright future to their children and dismissed the notion that vocational schools were only for “bad students.”
“There are different levels of vocational education and we are badly in need of middle and high level talents in various areas, especially in service industry and high-end manufacturing,” Weng said.
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