Premier Li Keqiang made an instruction on deepening the vocational education reform to a videophone conference on April 4.

The instruction said that developing modern vocational education is important for improving the quality of human resources, stabilizing and expanding employment, promoting high-quality development, and building a modern, powerful country.

Efforts should be strengthened to increase vocational schools’ enrollments by 1 million students and to encourage enterprises and social forces to open vocational schools.

Major weaknesses in vocational education should be addressed and production and teaching should be further integrated, the instruction said.

According to the instruction, a number of high-level vocational schools and brand majors should be developed to cultivate technical talent urgently needed.

The assessment and motivation of talent should be improved, and the campaign improving professional skills should be continued to encourage more young people to grow into workers with excellent skills, in order to provide sufficient human resources for economic development, the instruction said.

Vocational education and general education are equally important despite their differences, said Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who attended the meeting.

Sun called for more efforts to improve the social status and pay of skilled personnel, nurture teachers who excel at both theoretical knowledge and practical skills and develop leading enterprises that work with vocational schools and higher educational institutions.