Stepping into the labour market from the VET sector in China: student perceptions and experiences

ABSTRACT

The Chinese Government is clear that investment is needed to upskill the workforce, yet VET students, who will play a key role in the upskilling, continue to be positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy and suffer considerable societal prejudice. This paper presents new findings on Chinese VET students’ perceptions of the job market and career possibilities in the context of the negatively stereotyped VET system. The findings are analysed through the lens of Gramsci’s hegemonic power and with reference to Bauman’s individualisation. A lack of confidence was found among the VET students who were about to enter the labour market; moreover, they exhibited a passive acceptance of whatever jobs were available, rather than mindfully choosing. Analysis of the findings suggests that the students gave their active consent to the hegemonic human capital form of thinking and accepted their perceived ‘inadequacy’ and unfavourable places in the division of labour. They were under the impression that they needed to take responsibility for the choices they made as ‘[our] chances all come down to us'. The study concludes that this individualising force could sustain hegemonic control as well as provide the ‘flexible workers’ needed by an economy influenced by neoliberalism.

KEYWORDS:

• VET student
• career perception
• neoliberalism
• Chinese VET
• stereotype

Acknowledgements

I thank the following persons for different kind of support or inspiration: Dr Lesley Doyle, Dr Keyu Zhai, and Xing Gao.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It is argued that China is facing a potential growth of technological unemployment and job polarisation in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4^th IR) (Li, Hou, and Wu 2017). In 2017, the 19^th National Congress of China acknowledged the consequences of the 4^th IR and pointed out the need to ‘promote the deep integration of AI and economy’ and ‘cultivate a large number of internationally competitive talents’ (State Council 2017). In 2019, the Chinese State Council published the Implementation Plan on National Vocational Education Reform, which announced that 100 billion RMB will be invested in vocational education for 15 million people to upgrade their skills (State Council 2019).