A Study On The Predicaments Of Rural Vocational Education In China

Since the late of last century, the enrollment and the student number of middle vocational education have declined, its development has stepped into an awkward predicament. Based on the whole vocational education, the development of rural vocational education (mainly the middle vocational education in county) is the toughest, and the predicament is the worst, but the rural vocational education is more representative. The inevitable hidden controversy is on the one hand the industry needs a great number of technical talents,"the yearly salary of 100.000 can not employ a senior fitter", the government has already hosted several national meetings about vocational education, advise that develop middle vocational education strongly; on the other hand, the farmers'children as the mainly potential enrollment of middle vocational education are not in a great number, which formulate an obvious comparison referring to the emergent needs of industry and the proclaims of government.The predicaments of rural vocational education exist in many areas, and last for a long time, they belong to a kind of major educational phenomenon. The famous socialist named Lu Xueyi said"we can learn from the experience of last five decades that one kind of economy-social problem, once it does not happen in certain villages, or counties, but it has become general, and can not spend one or two years but even a long time to deal with, then, it is not the common problem of working, nor of certain leaders". To find the essential cause of rural vocational education, the academic field needs to deeply implore, to further analyze problems above, and to provide the profound explanation concerning the predicaments which the rural vocational education confronted in times.The formation and evolvement of a major educational phenomenon are always"the matters that inside of education are more important than the outside", my thesis based on the micro-perspective that the restriction of social structure which influences the farmers'choice towards the vocational education for their children, uses the individual choosing of farmers as the starting point of the study, meanwhile from the macro-perspective ,that is the rural social mobility and the social changes as the background of the thesis, also with the rationalization to explain the reason that why the farmers were willing to choose vocational education for their children at the beginning of Open-up Reform ,but in the late of 90s, they were not. Coleman used to confidently point out that, the rational choosing based on the mythological individualism and the micro-level can be used to explain the social phenomenon of macro-level. So, my study based on the micro-level to analyze the basic consideration of farmers who choose vocational education for the children, that is, the causes that make a great number of farmer estrange the rural education for so long time; the elements which restrain choosing activity of the vocational education for the children; how the farmers to choose the manner activity in such kind of structural restrain; the overlaps and gaps between the rural vocational education either before or after the transformation and the educational aspirations of farmers. To find out answers concerning the questions, researcher through historical investigating of the evolvement of rural vocational education and changes of social structure, and using the farmers reason as the main clue to explores the essential appeals of modern farmer's choosing toward the vocational education for their children, and to seek a persuasive explanation to the predicament of modern rural vocational education.The logical structure is based on the mobility and classification of stratum structure to reveal the farmer's deep desire of moving towards the upper stratum , according to the vocational structure and its rural fame to explore the moving direction, in accordance with the feature of labor market and the employment mode to inspect the moving process of employment structure in real society concerning the graduates of rural vocational education; what the rural vocational education can contribute to the moving desire, moving hope, and moving process in different period? How to change from can to cannot since the open-up reform? In last, by analyzing the rural individual choosing to vocational education is limited by the restriction of the social structure, in order to embody the farmers'choosing in accordance with the modern social structure is rational, the predicaments that the rural vocational education confronted are caused by the changes of social structure, which in result to dislocation between the needs of nation macro-development and the appeals of the individual interests, in order to solve them, we need to remove the unfair system of reasonable moving in social stratum, to further arrange the system of individual choosing about vocational education, to pursuit the coordination between the social reason and individual reason.There are totally six chapters in my thesis. The introduction generally embody the reason, thinking, and concerned study of the thesis, briefly describes the background of the predicaments of rural vocational education and the meaning of the thesis. The first chapter introduces the hypothesis of the research, according to the need of topic selecting: first, the social stratum objectively exists, the social structure restricts the choosing activity of farmers; second, the farmers are rational, the foundation of choosing vocational education for their children is the bounded rationality, their aspiration for the children is to realize the stratum jumping. In accordance with the hypothesis to arrange my study method. The second chapter analyzes the evolvement of the social stratification to inspect the inferior status of farmers, they hope their children to upper mobility by education, but the function of rural vocational education has changed from the"status education"to"surviving education", there is a huge gap between the choosing of rural vocational education and the desire of upper social mobility of farmers'aspiration to their children. The third chapter starts from the high-level of the recent employment structure to elucidate the higher educated degree has become an important qualification to have superior vocation, the farmers hope their children not to be farmer or the blue collar by receiving education, but the rural vocational education is limited by the level of running school, so the graduation can not compete with the graduation from the high school in employment market, in result to mobilize to the industrial working stratum which affects the initiation of the farmers'choosing for the children. The forth chapter strongly analyzes and describes the actual mobility reality of graduation from rural vocational education. The employment system of graduation has changed from the national arrangement to bilateral choice and multiple choice under the market arrangement, the graduation of rural vocational education mostly employ in the inferior labor market by the informal manner of employment. The worst is the cultivating mode of rural vocational education does not emphasize the practical ability of students, so the graduation are not popular in employment market, because of not realizing the steady employment, the farmers estrange from the rural vocational education. The fifth chapter explains the predicament of rural vocational education, that is, the dislocation between the national needs in macro-level which to develop the rural vocational education and the individual farmer's interests; we need to eliminate laid-off workers to correctly understand the value of rural vocational education, to respect the choice of farmers. According to these to find the policy of developing the rural vocational education, the key is emphasizing the educator's individual interests,so to push forward the system arrangement of individual choice to education, to improve the quality of rural vocational education, so, the farmers can recognize the true interests of receiving the rural vocational education for children, in the end to promote the long term development of rural vocational education.