Balanced Development for Provincial-Level Coordination and Higher Vocational Education

Abstract

In the rapid development of Chinese higher vocational education, large gaps have appeared in the scale of development and resource generation among the provinces, among regions in the provinces, and among higher education institutions in the provinces. Balanced regional development and provincial-level coordination have become policy focal points, but a discussion of the relationship between the two has been lacking in the academic world. Based on 2009 data on vocational colleges in China, the quantitative analysis in this paper shows that there is a tension between the governance models of higher vocational education and balanced development of vocational colleges within provinces. Research findings show that school affiliation is related to the ability to attract public funding, appropriations for public schools are significantly higher than for private schools, and tuition for private schools is significantly higher than for public schools; school affiliation is related to output, and the new student registration rate and number of cooperating enterprises is higher for public schools than private schools; and there is a significant positive correlation between the ratio of prefecture-level city schools and the average number of cooperating enterprises for schools in a province, and a significant positive correlation between the ratio of private schools and the average tuition of schools in a province. This paper suggests that to achieve the dual objectives of balance and development, provincial-level governments should adjust their administrations and financing for higher vocational education and decentralize their authority to local governments, in order to build a diverse and flexible new model for higher vocational education governance.