Guangming Daily reported that during the current Lianghui [the "Lianghui" consists of two parts: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference (CPPCC)], Zhu Yongxing, deputy director of Chinese Society of Education raised two areas that demand education reform: the increase in Chinese youth studying abroad and the lack of education for migrant workers. Zhu commented that the current education system in China is ineffective and can’t meet the demand of its people.
According to Zhu, in 2014, Chinese oversea students spent close to 200 billion yuan (USD$31 billion) on higher education overseas. From July 2014 to February 2015, the number of Chinese high school students studying in the U.S. grew 50 percent. Zhu called for renovation in the Chinese education system to improve its quality in order to make it more diverse and advanced so as to keep the Chinese youth from studying abroad.
Zhu also said that, based on the statistics from the Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security, there are 150 million technical workers in China, accounting for 19 percent of total employed population. Among them 37 million are workers with advanced skills. Zhu claimed that vocational education can solve the issue of the technical labor shortage and lack of quality workers. However the current vocational schools lack flexibility; they are unable to provide evening and weekend classes and a curriculum that will attract migrant workers. Their admission rate continues to drop while their resources remain underutilized. Zhu suggested that the funding from the central administration and local government can help the vocational schools to provide professional training classes and redesign the courses so that they provide flexibility to enable the migrant workers to gain technical skills.
Source: Guangming Daily, March 3, 2016
http://edu.gmw.cn/2016-03/04/content_19160882.htm