he age of 24 is often regarded as the prime of life - in which young people make the most of their time in college and plan their dream job. But for Li Qiang, the age of 24 means a turning point in his career. An auto mechanic with five years of experience in the trade in Shijiazhuang, north China's Hebei Province, Li was recently promoted as the head of a team of 10 mechanics in a car repair workshop.

"I failed the entrance exam for high school and had to attend a vocational school. I never expected this choice could lead me to the career of my interest," Li told ChinAfrica.

Li's experience is part of a wider trend in the youth market providing viable alternatives to young people besides cramming themselves into college. As China is providing more and more job opportunities for skilled artisans in reshaping its economy, the youth are seeking successful careers through vocational training.

Acquiring skills

Roughly 80 million students have graduated from vocational schools with a trained skill set since 2006, making up 60 percent of China's newly added workforce. Lu Xin, Vice Minister of Education, disclosed this at a press conference on vocational education development in China in June. "[These graduates] are growing and have grown to senior technicians in many trades," said Lu.

According to her, there were 29.34 million students in 13,600 vocational schools and polytechnic colleges in 2013. Nearly 46 percent of graduates from secondary schools and high schools respectively chose to go this route as an educational option.

The achievement was largely credited to the country's support of vocational training, especially in terms of financial subsidies. Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that China invested a total of 1.23 trillion yuan ($199 billion) in vocational education from 2005 to 2013, with an annual increase of 25 percent. Since 2007, China has scrapped tuition fees for students from rural areas if they attend technical schools, and offered a scholarship of 1,500 yuan ($243) a year for 20 percent of students receiving vocational training.

The option seems to be a wise response to the tightening job market as reflected in a survey by the Institute for Educational Economics of School of Education at the Peking University. Conducted in June 2013 among 30 colleges across 21 provinces, the study showed the employment rate of graduates from vocational schools was surprisingly 3 percentage points higher than that of students from top universities.

Also, university graduates working in white-collar positions are not necessarily better paid than technicians. "The company contributes insurance and pension for me and pays me a monthly salary of 7,000 yuan ($1,134)," said Li. Coming from a rural family, Li is satisfied as the salary is enough to support his family. In 2014, the average monthly salary for university graduates nationwide is less than 4,000 yuan ($650.4), according to zhaopin.com, one of China's main websites providing job information.

2020 plan

The good news is that the government is reinforcing efforts to further support vocational training so that more young people could carve out a bright future like Li. On June 22, the State Council, China's cabinet, released a policy to accelerate the development of a modern vocational education system, pledging to nurture skills in modern agriculture, advanced manufacturing, modern service businesses, new strategic industries and social management, as well as ecological studies. By 2020, a modern vocational education system should be established with world-class standards that fits China's reality, according to the policy, which plans to involve 38.3 million students in vocational education institutions by then.

"China is currently seeking to improve the quality of Chinese products and services by upgrading and restructuring the economy. Such improvement depends on a large number of skilled workers," said Wang Jiping, Counsel of the Department of Vocational and Adult Education under the Ministry of Education, adding that vocational training targeting cultivating highly-skilled human resources will play an increasingly important role in China's economic development.

Urbanization is another vital facet of the rise of China's economy, in which the employment of migrant workers must be effectively addressed. Experts believe skill-oriented education will train labor surpluses in China's vast rural areas to master medium- and high-level skill sets, so that they can share the benefits of urbanization and meet the demand of qualified workers in an upgraded economy.

Paving the way

As shown by the figures mentioned above, acquiring a skill will be a good way to guarantee a stable career for the youth. There are still a considerable number of people regarding vocational training as inferior to college education, due to the fact that only those who failed high school or college entrance exams choose to attend technical schools.

"It's much better to be enrolled by a university, compared with attending vocational schools. After graduation, the working environment for technical workers is less comfortable than that of white-collar workers," said Liu Min. A migrant worker in Beijing from central China's Henan Province, Liu would rather support her son to spend an extra year in high school preparing for the college entrance exam than let him take the vocational training route.

Besides, with a comparatively bleaker prospective return, vocational training schools are disadvantageous in teaching faculty and social reputation. This is another reason why such an option is less acknowledged, experts believed. "China's education ignores the cultivation of skilled people with many colleges rushing to pursue academic research beyond their capacity, only turning out graduates undesirable for the job market," said Yu Zuguang, Vice President with the Chinese Society of Vocational and Technical Education.

Yu's words mirror factors that hamper the future development of vocational education in China's educational system. But the decision by the State Council will make a difference in this regard, highlighting vocational training in the higher education system by guiding some universities to reform specialist skills training. Experts say this can help change people's minds that vocational training is inferior to college education.

"This means that vocational training has attached equal importance to degree education," said Xiong Bingqi, Deputy Director of the 21th Century Education Research Institute, believing universities should be given full autonomy on how to train students.

"Vocational training should be employment-oriented. The government's responsibility is to collect information, like what kind of graduates the job market needs, while universities decide to focus on certain majors they specialize in, based on market demand and teaching resources," added Xiong.