The first Vocational Education Week kicked off in Beijing on May 10.

Speeding up vocational education is a strategic measure to give full play to our advantages in human resources and promote mass innovation and entrepreneurship, Premier Li Keqiang said in an instruction sent to the event.

The event aims to increase social awareness that it is an honor to work and skills should be valued, creating a favorable social environment in which a person’s skills and capabilities are much more valued rather than his level of academic education, the Premier said.

The Premier said that the event should be oriented to increase the quality of the labor force, promote employment and serve development.

It should also stress reform and innovation, increase the integration of education and employment, and promote the development of vocational education to a new level, he said.

Only in this way can the event help to cultivate a high-quality labor force, increase China’s manufacturing and service level, and further increase its industrial international competitiveness, maintain its economic growth at an optimum speed, thus improving people’s lives, the Premier said.

Vice-Premier Liu Yandong attended the event’s opening ceremony and delivered a speech.

She stressed that Li’s instruction should be implemented to cultivate a large-scale workforce with high quality, thus providing talent support for upgrading the Chinese economy, mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Liu said that the development of vocational education and comprehensive education reform are of the highest priority in the development of economy and society.

Revising vocational education laws should be taken as an opportunity to promote the coordination of educational, industrial and talent policies, she said.

Resource distribution should be optimized, talent cultivation pattern should be innovated, and the administrative structure of schools be improved to promote the quality of vocational education.

She also said that the event shall be held with meticulous efforts so as to make the whole society learn and understand vocational education and everyone in need of vocational education share the fruits its development.

The vocational education week is held in the second week of May every year. Ma Peiyuan, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, also attended the opening ceremony. Others at the event included representatives from related ministries of the State Council, teachers and students in Beijing and award winners from a vocational skills competition.