China reforms higher education drastically

China has found a radical way to fight unemployment and labor market saturation. At least half of the public universities in the country will be turned into institutions of applied learning or polytechnics. The transition’s effect should be making more engineers, senior technicians and other highly skilled workers available for the labor market.

Lu Xin, a vice-minister in the department of Education in China, said that the ‘production frontline’ needs more high quality talents. Right now, too many graduates with similar academic degrees are hunting for a limited number of jobs. Since more and more people visit university in China, a lot of ‘irrelevant’ programs emerged. The measures should help reduce unemployment.

Students aren’t that enthusiastic yet. Chinese students are more attracted by management positions than technical jobs. This has led to some major problems in the job market. This year a record 7.26 million students will graduate from China’s universities, with unemployment levels running at around 15%. The government now has to promote the technical jobs amongst young people to make a dual-track higher education system work.