To eliminate poverty,developing education is an universal adoption for countries in the world.However,on the basis of offering fundamental education,to develop which kind of education is more suitable to meet the needs of the poor and more conducive in the course of anti-poverty,which is closely related to factors such as economic development and cultural concepts.Vocational education directly facing the root of poverty,namely,poor development ability of the poor,focuses on developing the vocational ability and promoting the employment of the poor,thus eliminating poverty by relying on employment.In view of this characteristic,vocational education has become an educational guarantee for the poor to get rid of poverty,an important channel to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation,and a long-term solution for low-income groups to increase their incomes and become rich.For this reason,the mechanism and realization paths of vocational education anti-poverty are the core issues of this research,aiming to clarify the questions from the academic perspective: Why vocational education can be a measure of anti-poverty? How is the anti-poverty effects of vocational education realized? What experience can be obtained from historical practice at home and abroad? How can vocational education play a better role in rural revitalization and relative poverty governance? What kind of action plan can be provided?In order to explore the above issues,this research is carried out with the following ideas and methods.First,determine the research ideas and design the analysis framework by means of analyzing literature and theories.Second,through analyzing policy texts,reveal the historical evolution of the vocational education’s anti-poverty policies and the evolution of understanding the mechanism of vocational education anti-poverty.Third,adopt questionnaire survey and interview methods to show a realistic picture of vocational education anti-poverty and its realization path.Fourth,by using the method of comparative analysis,sort out the typical measures of vocational education anti-poverty implemented by international organizations and their understanding of its mechanism and realization path.Fifth,put forward the mechanism and realization paths of vocational education anti-poverty in this research by using induction method.The specific research content and steps are as follows:First of all,from the perspective of historical institutionalism,it sorts out the evolutionary stages,evolutionary motivations of the vocational education anti-poverty policies and the basic logic of policy governance since the founding of the PRC(People’s Republic of China).Next,taking academic vocational education and non-academic vocational skills training as the research objects,this research focuses on analyzing the main effects,operational characteristics and practical difficulties of vocational education anti-poverty to present the actual situation.On this basis,it analyzes the organizational mission and anti-poverty concepts of the ILO(International Labor Organization),UNESCO and the World Bank,as well as the main implementations,functioning mechanism and realization paths of vocational education antipoverty.Finally,on the basis of historical realistic and comparative analysis,this research summarizes the influencing factors of the anti-poverty mechanism of vocational education and the optimization suggestions for the realization path.Through the above research,the following seven conclusions are drawn:First,since the founding of PRC,the anti-poverty policies of vocational education have gone through six stages: popularizing labor production knowledge for workers,peasants and soldiers to improve the situation of poverty and backwardness in general(1949-1977);cultivating practical talents for poverty-stricken areas to stimulate the rural economy vitality and promote farmers’ income(1978-1993);providing vocational skill training for adults to promote farmers’ income and transfer employment(1994-2000);improving people’s qualities in poverty-stricken areas and speeding up the pace of solving problems to make sure that all people have food and clothing(2001-2010);providing multi-level support and help for the poor to remove poverty(2011-2020);carrying out lifelong vocational training for low-income laborers in urban and rural areas to expand the middle class(2021-).The reasons behind the evolution are as follows: from political perspective,vocational education is regarded as an important measure to enhance the sense of happiness of the poor;from economic perspective,vocational education is regarded as an important means of transforming the poor into labors needed for economic and social development;from policy perspective,vocational education is regarded as the basic guarantee for the poor to achieve self-reliance,self-independence and development;from cultural perspective,vocational education is regarded as the priority option for the poor to obtain both intelligence and aspiration.Through combing the policy evolution,the basic policy logic of vocational education anti-poverty is clear to be seen,that is,it being inherently unified with the national anti-poverty strategy goals,being integrated into the country’s sustained and high-speed development,always focusing on developing the poor’s abilities in terms of employment,and timely optimizing the ways of anti-poverty implementations.Second,to eliminate poverty,formal schooling vocational education is offered to students from poor families with complex reasons who have more difficulty getting rid of poverty.They are provided with suitable learning opportunities and high-quality resource support,long-term and systematic training,and finally realize the goal of comprehensive empowerment.Developing the abilities of the students from poor families is the result of joint efforts of schools and enterprises.To be specific,vocational schools are the main training bodies,national poverty standard is the identification basis,the connection between capacity development at schools and employment in enterprises is the bridge,and the goal is to achieve poverty alleviation thoroughly.At the same time,there is still space in terms of the following aspects,say,vocational schools can do more to activate the poor family students’ awareness,ability and methods;it can be more individually targeted to develop the qualities of the students from poor families;the system should be established to help the students from poor families to get a job;and there is much can be done to support students from poor families to achieve career development.Third,in order to eliminate poverty,non-academic vocational skill training focuses precisely on the poor rural adult laborers to activates their endogenous development motivation from multiple dimensions by carrying out practical technical training or vocational skills training.The impoverished adult laborers are satisfied with vocational skill training,thus enhancing their sense of happiness and gains.These effects are closely related to the following operational characteristics of non-academic vocational skill training amid anti-poverty,that is,the government’s overall allocation of training resources and optimizing training supply,the effective connection of skill training and labor production to develop the impoverished adults’ capabilities,and making labor market organizations interact with poor laborers in multiple directions under the direction of the the government.Facing the new situation of national governance and the new demands of low-income groups to increase incomes,vocational skill training is facing realistic challenges,such as the inherent tension between the supply body’s insufficient ability to adapt to market-oriented reforms,the tension between diverse source and needs of the trainees and the restriction of training costs,cooperation hard to implement among different training institutions and the lack of external and internal motivations,etc.Fourth,the ILO has launched a comprehensive employment promotion project for the informal economy,by adopting training to promote the development of human capital for special groups,to promote decent employment and entrepreneurship to change disadvantaged situations;UNESCO regards the promotion of young people’s employment and starting business as sustainable development and the core mission of poverty reduction,taking the promotion of educational equity and gender equality as an important area of sustainable development and poverty reduction,taking the cultivation of green skills and promoting a green economy as the development direction of sustainable development and poverty reduction,and innovating vocational and technical education and training to enhance the ability to serve special groups;the World Bank has launched human capital projects starting from the following aspects,namely,promotion of sustainable development,developing future-oriented education for all and poverty reduction.The enlightenment of the above practice lies in creating a policy environment that links capacity building and capacity development for the poor groups through taking the capacity development of the poor as the starting point and end point,providing personalized education and training support according to the needs of different groups,and promoting the disadvantaged groups’ employment and decent work as the fundamental goal.Fifth,the anti-poverty mechanism of academic vocational education can be summarized as follows: focusing on career-oriented ability development of students from poor families,close integration of school training and corporate training,and promotion of employment and starting business to cut off the transmission of poverty.The main influencing factors include whether vocational education can provide the poor with internal development motivation;whether the poor can effectively participate in vocational education;whether the participants can effectively cooperate;whether the anti-poverty policies are coordinated and consistent;and whether capacity development can meet and match the market demands,etc.The anti-poverty mechanism of non-academic vocational skill training is as follows: to face the impoverished adult laborers and develop their labor productivity,provide practical technical or vocational skill training for them to fulfill the goal of better matching these laborers,labor production and job postings together.The main influencing factors include whether the quality of skill training is guaranteed;whether the contradiction between the individualization of skill demands and the homogeneity of training supplies can be resolved;whether training resources can support the diverse needs of trainees;and whether changes in skill training can adapt to low-income groups’ new demands.Sixth,the realization path of vocational education anti-poverty can be summarized as the following aspects: identifying the objects of the poor groups,capacity development and precise empowerment,promotion of employment and elimination of poverty,ability development and income increase,then finally get rid of poverty and achieve development.In reality,there are three dimensions.The first dimension is that the three factors,education and training for individuals,job postings,stable income and poverty alleviation,are closely interrelated.The second dimension is that the factors to be mentioned are expected to be promoted simultaneously,these factors including the training of local talents at the regional level,talent support for regional development,regional economic development,regional poverty alleviation and individual poverty alleviation.The third is that the social level integration of job creation,capacity development,employment promotion,group income increase,and social stability.Seventh,facing the real needs of rural revitalization and income increase of the lowincome groups in the new era,vocational education needs to shift from focusing on promoting the poor out of poverty to focusing on helping low-income groups to increase their incomes,and focusing on the integration of vocational education,general education and lifelong vocational training to provide support for people’s life-long development,shift from promoting the employment of poor groups to offering services for low-income groups to make them achieve career development,thus optimizing social structure and social integration. |