During the 50 years since the founding of the People‘s Republic of China in l949, vocational education underwent a process of adjustment, rectification, substantiation, reform, improvement and steady development. Since China entered a new historical era of reform and opening to the outside world in 1978, Chinese vocational education has been injected with tremendous vitality for development. In l991, the State Council formulated the "Decision on Energetically Developing Vocational and Technical Education" identifying the tasks and objectives for the further development of vocational education in the light of economic and social development in the 1990‘s in China. The " Outline on Reform and Development of Education in China" drawn up by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in 1993 required governments at various levels to attach great importance to vocational education, make overall plans and energetical develop vocational education. The outline aimed at mobilizing the initiatives of all departments, enterprises, institutions and all quarters of the society to provide vocational education of multiple forms and various levels. In 1996, the first "Vocational Education Law" in China was formally promulgated and implemented, providing legal protection for the development and perfection of vocational education. A year after, in the "Report of the 15th National Congress", President Jiang Zeming pointed out that the strategy of invigorating China through science, technology and education and keeping sustainable development should be implemented and vocational education and adult education of various forms should be actively developed. The "Decision on Deepening Educational Reform and Promoting Quality Education " the State Council in 1999 emphasizes that an educational system adapting to the socialistic market economy and the internal law of education with different types of education linking up to each other should be established, and that vocational education should be energetically developed and senior secondary education including regular and vocational education should also be vigorously developed. All these policies, regulations and laws have not only created an unprecedentedly good social environment for the development of vocational education, but also show the direction for the reform and development of vocational education in the 21st century.

　　The System of Vocational Education and Its Development

　　The system of vocational education consists of education in vocational schools and vocational training.

　　Vocational education in China is provided at three levels: junior secondary, senior secondary and tertiary.

　　Conducted mainly in junior vocational schools and aimed at training workers, peasants and employees in other sectors with basic professional knowledge and certain professional skills, junior vocational education refers to the vocational and technical education after primary school education and is a part of the 9-year compulsory education. The students in secondary vocational school should be primary school graduates or the youth with equivalent cultural knowledge and its schooling lasts 3 to 4 years. To meet the needs of labor forces for the development of rural economy, junior vocational schools are mainly located in rural areas where the economy is less developed.

　　The secondary level mainly refers to the vocational education in senior high school stage. Composed of specialized secondary schools, skill workers schools and vocational high schools, and as the mainstay of vocational education in China, secondary vocational education plays a guiding role in training manpower with practical skills at primary and secondary levels of various types.

　　Consisting of secondary technical schools and normal schoo1s, specialized secondary schools enroll junior high school graduates with a schooling of usually 4 years and sometimes 3 years, A few specialities are open only to senior high school graduates with the schooling lasting 2 years. The basic tasks of these schools are to train secondary-level specialized and technical talents for the forefront of production, and all the students should master the basic knowledge, theory and skills of their speciality in addition to the cultural knowledge required for higher school students.