Study On Countermeasures Of The Adjustment Of Major Setting In Vocational Education Center At Country Level

Recently, issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers have been one of the top priorities of the Party and the State, and developing vocational education in rural areas is crucial to address these issues. As a representation of the direction of rural vocational education, county- level vocational education center is mandated to manage the vocational education resources of the whole county. Policies have been made to facilitate the development of these centers at the state level. In 2005, the Decision of the State Council on Developing Vocational Education, a milestone in the State Council’s support for vocational education, was issued. The Decision states that county-level vocational education center should be built and improved to become important platform for the migration and training of rural labor forces, poverty reduction, human resources development and technical trainings. The Outline of the National Medium- and Long-term Program for Education Reform and Development for 2010 to 2020 issued in 2010 notes that vocational education for rural areas should be accelerated and county- level vocational education center should be set up accordingly. Vocational education centers at the county-level relate to every aspect of the economy of the home counties, and the design of majors offered is the key in providing vocational education. Only by offering and adjusting appropriate majors and improving the compatibility of the majors provided and the industrial structure of the home county can a vocational education center better contribute to the development of the county economy.By combining surveys, literature analysis, and case studies, this paper analyzes the compatibility of the major offered in the vocational education centers in the nine counties in the City of Chengde and the industrial structure of these countries. In this paper, definitions and theories of major designing in vocational education center are specified and the factors and principles influencing major designing are systematically studied. The status quo of the major offered by vocational education centers in the above- mentioned counties is then analyzed from the perspective of industrial structure. As the paper finds out, the proportion of majors offered related to the primary and secondary industries fall short of the tertiary industry majors. Reasons for this unbalance between the major offerings and industrial structure is then analyzed. The paper concludes by prosing several suggestions, which includes improvement of policies and regulations, guidance by major catalogue in vocational education, a better proportion of students enrolled in majors related to the tertiary industries, a change of traditional mindset, diversification of funding resources, and provision of featured majors based on the industries or sectors in which the home county has particular strength.