International Cooperation and Exchanges on Chinese Vocational Education

Internationalization has become a common trend for the reform and development of modern education in the world£® Along with the reform and opening to the outside world, China has been actively engaged in the international cooperation and exchanges in the field of vocational education. During the past 20 years, the government has sent many delegations to over 20 countries and districts where vocational education is well-developed and shows their unique characteristics to learn successful foreign experience. At the same time, China has received many foreign vocational education delegations, invited foreign experts to give lectures in China, and jointly provided education with foreign vocational education institutions to promote the development of Chinese vocational education, China has also made more and more contact with the UNESCO, UNDP, world Labor Organization, UNPF, APEC and other international organizations while the bilateral cooperation and exchanges between China and other countries has been increasingly expanded.

In order to improve the level of vocational education teachers, since 1987 China has sent thousands of administrators and teachers who teach specialized courses to America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada and Japan for study, which has received good results.

In 1990, the Chinese government signed the "Agreement on the Loan for Vocational Education Project in China" with World Bank and began to develop our vocational education with the loan from World Bank£® At present, the first session projects have been finished while the second session have begun. The two session projects altogether will use $ 80 million from world Bank and $ 100 million from the Chinese government£® The implementation of the whole project has significantly strengthened the construction of teacher training bases for vocational education and the teaching and speciality construction in vocational schools. In 1990, German government agreed to provide the fund to establish the Central Vocational Education Research Institute and two local research institutes in Shanghai and Liaoning£® Since early 1980's, China and German have jointly set up over 30 cooperative projects in the field of vocational education and carried out the pilot reform which drew experience form the German "Dual-track System" with wide and deep cooperation and research on educational thought, schooling system and teaching patterns.
In Addition, cooperating with Canada and Australia, China imported their educational and training models based on ability to reform the traditional teaching patterns. The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare cooperated with the World Labor Organization to carry out the pilot work in skill worker schools and in-service training.

From 13 Sept. to 18 Sept£®1993,China undertook the International Seminar of Vocational and Technical Education organized by the UNESCO. In April 1997, the International Seminar on Rural Vocational Education was held in China and representatives from foreign countries, World Bank and World Labor Organization discussed and summarized the international development of vocational education, providing valuable experience for developing vocational education in China.