Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji Tuesday called for nationwide efforts to restructure and expand the country's vocational education system in a bid to produce a highly skilled workforce of up to hundred millions for sustainable economic and social progress.
Addressing a closing session of a national meeting on vocational education, Zhu described the training of such a workforce as an urgent need for the country's economic development and modernization drives.
Zhu said reform and expansion of vocational education has a direct bearing on the country's industrialization and modernization, and on the realization of the country's strategic development targets for the coming decades.
Taking into account the unique conditions of China's human resources, it is necessary to promote labor-intensive as well as capital- and technology-intensive industries, Zhu said.
China needs tens of millions of professionals and hundred millions of highly skilled workers, said the premier, emphasizing that speeding up vocational education is the most effective way to tap the country's human resources, and improve the quality of its workforce.
The premier urged localities and large and medium-sized enterprises to give priority to vocational education.
Governments at all levels should also increase investment in vocational education, he said.
( People’s Daily July 31, 2002)
