Research On New China's Higher Vocational Education Policies

Since the founding of P.R. China, the higher vocational education has become an important component of the education of socialism with China's characteristic after 50 years of development. The value of the vocational education is increasing and its tremendous economic and social functions are becoming clearer. However, due to the historical reasons, there are still many problems for us to solve in terms of its progress. This paper describes the background of the vocational education policies and characteristics of these policies of the different social periods through the study on the changes of the New China's higher vocational education policies, researches on the value orientation of the policies, discusses the deviation and corrective measures between the policy objectives and the means, analyzes China's higher vocational education policy-oriented trends, and puts forward the policy adjustment proposals in order to provide China's higher vocational education reform and development with some advice.This paper is divided into four main parts.Part I focuses on the development process of new China's higher vocational education policies after her founding, analyzes the characteristics of the policies in the different stages to guide China's further vocational education reform.Part II analyzes the value orientation of China's higher vocational education policies after new China's founding and their influences on the higher vocational education. The paper claims that each policy is the need of China's own reform and development of vocational education, and meanwhile greatly influences the development of China's higher vocational education.Part III discusses the deviation and corrective measures of new China's higher vocational policies in terms of their objectives and the means. The paper describes the deviational situation between the higher vocational education policies'objectives and means: difficulty in ensuring the objectives of the higher vocational education due to the policy deviation; difficulty in ensuring the scale of the higher vocational education due to the planned proportion between the higher vocational education and the higher education; limit on widening the space of the higher vocational education due to the incomplete of the transitional policies; lack of motivation in the vocational students to study due to the unfavorable recruitment policy; existent differences between the vocational education and the lifelong education due to the outdated vocational training policy notions; and so on. The paper also points out the corrective measures in terms of the national policies.Part IV expounds the orientation issues of higher vocational education policies. The market is not the only way out for China's higher vocational education. The fundamental driving force is to provide the professional service to the market and The society, and cultivate the talents for the market and society. The nation is the biggest beneficiary of the vocational education. In accordance with the principle of "whoever benefits invests", the vocational education should be invested in mainly by the government, and the enterprises and individuals should also shoulder their respective responsibilities. Therefore, the orientation of China's higher vocational education should be: to form the diverse and open policies; to establish the system with the government's macroeconomic management and the social autonomy to open the schools; to improve the corporate governance structure, and strengthen vocational education institutions within the operating mechanism; and to increase the rational standard.Finally, the concluding part mainly generalizes the whole paper and puts forward the four aspects in succession which are urgent to improve in regard to the higher vocational education policies. They chiefly are: to perfect the laws and regulations and policies; to adjust the investment policies; to change the teaching strength policies; to improve the rural vocational education services to agricultural enterprises policy; and so on.The original points of the paper are its systemic analyses of the process of new China's higher vocational education policies, and its full insight into the value orientation, influences and trend of the policies. It claims that each policy is the product of the need of both China's vocational education policies and the lesson from other countries'vocational education, and points out the aspects in which the polices must be adjusted in order to provide policy makers with some advice and lay the foundation for the future policy research and the development of the vocational education.