The Levels and Training Strategies of Chinese Higher Vocational Education

Abstract

Chinese higher vocational education has already formed a relatively complete system covering the four degree levels: associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral. The associate’s level mainly cultivates people with high-tech capabilities for enterprises. The bachelor’s level is mainly divided into application and teaching bachelor’s, whereby an application bachelor’s education focuses on strengthening the practical teaching segment, and the teaching bachelor’s focuses on strengthening students’ “dual-teaching” abilities. The master’s level includes professional master’s degrees, master’s degrees for secondary vocational school teachers who are studying while working, and professional master’s degrees in full-time vocational and technical education—all of which should make clear their own training objectives, apply flexible educational teaching models, and enlarge practical teaching segments. The doctoral level includes professional doctoral degrees and professional doctoral education in vocational and technical education. It is aimed at major practical issues in the field, strives to increase the practical contributions of degree applicants to the field, and inspires innovative results.

Keywords:

• associate’s
• bachelor’s
• doctoral
• education levels
• higher vocational education
• master’s

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Tianjin City Education Science “12th Five-Year Plan” key topic “Four-in-One Vocational Education Talent Cultivation Model Research” (VE2015; chair: Zhu Shiming).

Notes on contributors

Zhu Shiming

Zhu Shiming is head of and associate professor at the School of Vocational and Technical Education, Tianjin University, China.

Mao Ya’nan

Mao Ya’nan is a master’s degree graduate student at the School of Vocational and Technical Education, Tianjin University, China.