China’s Solution to the Dilemma of Higher Vocational Education Under the Background of Declining Birth Rate

Abstract

Vocational education is an important pathway for students to enter society after mastering work skills and is also an indispensable component of higher education. Currently, in some high-income and upper-middle-income countries, with the continuous decline in birth rates, the school-age population is decreasing year by year. Compared with general higher education, vocational education faces significant gaps in social reputation, employer recognition, and career choice, making it the first to be affected by the decline in the school-age population. In some countries, there has even been a wave of closures of higher vocational colleges, with some students bypassing higher vocational education options and directly seeking employment. Over the past fifteen years, China has been one of the upper-middle-income countries experiencing the most severe decline in birth rate and also one of the fastest in expanding higher education enrolment. In this context, how to balance the scale and quality of vocational education between a declining birth rate and a rising higher education enrolment rate has become a new challenge. The research found that (1) merging and restructuring vocational education institutions within the same region, upgrading some of the stronger institutions after the merger to vocational and technical universities; (2) providing fair employment opportunities and an employment environment for graduates of higher vocational education; and (3) embracing changes in industrial structure and implementing custom-made talent training have become three feasible solutions to the vocational education dilemma.