The college entrance examination, or gaokao, ended in Beijing on Thursday. Parents of the candidates held flowers in front of Beijing National Day School and Beijing No.9 high school to greet their children. A record 10.78 million candidates have sat this year's gaokao nationwide. Photo:Li Hao/GT

China will establish about 200 new vocational schools and colleges nationwide to further develop vocational education, and it will provide financial support for these schools through central government funds and special-purpose local government bonds, a multi-department announcement said on Tuesday. 

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, along with seven other top departments, jointly released a roadmap for integrating the industry development and talent training of vocational education from 2023 to 2025, which emphasized support for the sector. 

The roadmap said that the country will establish 200 vocational high schools and colleges across the country based on the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), and it pledged to allocate central government budget funds for the purpose. 

Each qualified vocational high school or college will be granted a maximum of 80 million yuan ($11.19 million) of support, and each vocational school will be granted up to 30 million yuan, said the roadmap.

The NDRC emphasized that long-term loans for vocational education should support the updating and replacement of advanced technical equipment in vocational colleges that have good financial conditions and low debt ratios, and it asked local authorities to understand the use of the funds.

NDRC data showed that from 2018 to 2022, China invested 1.8 trillion yuan in vocational education, with an average annual growth rate of 6.2 percent, showing support for industrial development. 

In October 2021, China unveiled "Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Modern Vocational Education," which said by 2025, the enrollment scale of vocational undergraduate education will be no less than 10 percent of the enrollment scale of higher vocational education,  showing China's confidence and determination to develop the sector. 

Liu Ming, an official of the NDRC, said that the integration of industry development and talent training through vocational education will help China build a modern industry structure and enhance the country's global competition, as well as meet the realistic demand for securing people's living standards and employment.