“Over 10 years ago, I came from Zhaiqing to Guangzhou. Though it was only a one-hour ride, the two places were quite different in terms of economic development. Guangzhou was the choice of many people in my hometown,” said 32-year-old Rong Zizhou.

As cities grow, more and more young people like him are migrating to them from rural areas with dreams and expectations. A report from the  National Bureau of Statistics shows that there were as many as 290 million migrant workers in China in 2019.

Now, about 160,000 of them are benefiting from a plan called “Skills Enhancement for Migrant Workers: Realising Dreams of Further Education”(hereinafter “the plan” for short). Aiming to enhance not only their skills but their living standards, it was launched jointly in 2016 by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. So far, the Open University of China (OUC) has admitted about 160,000 vocational students, and they are already taking on important roles in the work force.

Skills-based degrees enable migrant workers to gain better jobs.

“Without training, most of them can only find work in catering, retail or  manual manufacturing,” said Rong Zizhou.

The aforementioned report shows that 1% of migrant workers never attended school, 15% attended primary school, 56% junior middle school, 16.6% senior middle school, and only 11.1% junior college. Although the new generation of migrant workers is generally better educated than the previous, most are not educated beyond senior middle school.

At the same time, highly trained workers are extremely scarce. A report on employer demand released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China shows that, of the 100 most in-demand types of worker, 44 are in production and manufacturing, and 15 in other professional and technical areas. The two categories add up to 59% of the total.

According to vice president Lin Yu of the Open University of China (OUC), “Migrant workers need skills enhancement to make them valuable to enterprises and cities.”

The OUC (Guangzhou) School of Ophthalmology and Optometry takes part in this programme via the Guangzhou Xingainian Vocational Training School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, giving skills-based degree training to migrant workers and collaborating with about 10 enterprises.

In 2009, Rong Zizhou received his level-5 optometrist certification, and has continued upgrading his skills every two or three years since then. In 2018, he entered the School of Ophthalmology and Optometry as a junior-college student, and today he is a national level-1 optometrist, a skills appraiser, a senior optometrist assessor at the national level, and a member of Guangdong Optometry Association. He also teaches in the School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, and has obtained household registration in Guangzhou.

According to Lin Zhuosheng of the School of Ophthalmology and Optometry,“We offer technical training that ends up with the students having not only degrees but also national vocational certification.”

The school has focused on an innovative class that trains employees for startups, teaching not only eyesight testing but also understanding of medicine and optics, basic entrepreneurship skills such as shop-site selection, and purchase of merchandise. The school helps migrant workers who are already in, or ready to enter, ophthalmology and optometry as professionals and realise their dreams.

Customised learning plans enable migrant workers to continue working.

Quite a few migrant workers aspire to study without having to request money from their parents.

Li Yi is from rural Shanxi. After graduating from senior middle school, he chose to go south to try his luck after taking the college-entrance examination. He had to give up his studies because of sudden financial difficulties in his family.

To help workers over the formidable barrier of tuition costs, part of the plan was, by 2020, to fund the degree continuing education of 1.5 million migrant workers qualified for university entrance.

Li Yi signed up as a full-time vocational student in the School of Ophthalmology and Optometry with the earnings he had saved. “With a weekend job, a scholarship, and grants, I have no trouble staying afloat, and can focus on my studies.” He moved to junior college from polytechnic school, and took undergraduate courses independently after that, coming first in the national Optometry Skills Contest (Guangdong District).

The Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions launched a project in Guangzhou to give workers degree education, providing 1,500 yuan annually to 10,000 workers. From 2017 to 2019, about 33,000 migrant workers from Fujian were helped this way, and over 30 million yuan were raised for the project by the education and trade-union systems in Guangdong. The aim is for the provincial finance and trade unions to provide that sum annually, guaranteeing that the workers are charged nothing out-of-pocket.

Many workers fear that signing up for studies will mean losing their incomes. However, with “internet +” online learning they no longer have anything to worry about.

The Yum China school for “Realising Dreams of Further Education” offers all students a full gamut of resources, including online exercises, question-and-answer sessions, and live face-to-face tutorials. The courses are available on the mobile phones or computers of students at fixed places and times, while online examinations also help make studying much easier for workers. The School of Ophthalmology and Optometry has established over 60 QQ and WeChat groups, and has experts and teaching staff visit these to answer questions at set times.  

Ways of bringing teaching into workplaces have also been explored. Over 90% of the production at Ningde Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) has to meet AI machine-manufacturing standards, and requires many workers with specialized technical training. This has made it beneficial to the company to have Ningde RTVU come on-site to conduct such training, and set up a test centre there. So far, 273 migrant employees of the company have enhanced their skills this way.

Students, enterprises and local economies advance together through cooperation between the university and enterprises.

“Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Two Factor Theory, taught us in the management course, have given us a more systematic understanding of the needs of restaurant partners, and enabled us to manage in a targeted and more efficient way,” said Liu Xuefeng, a manager at KFC and a student in the Yum China “Realising Dreams of Further Education” school, who has been benefiting from on-the-job training. Four years ago, she was just another rural staff member.  

A Yum leader said that a company's human resources are its most important, and the basis of fast and stable development. This makes it essential for an enterprise to cultivate the talent it already has on staff.

The collaboration of the enterprise and university has revealed that Yum's training courses and the university’s courses have enough in common to allow  credit transfers to take place. In other words, Yum training can lead to credits recognized by the university, greatly enhancing the practicality of the courses and the enthusiasm of workers for taking them.

The programme not only helps migrant workers realise their dreams, but also gives a boost to local economies. The OUC has been active in cooperating with enterprises and establishing links between industry and education.

Quanzhou, as a manufacturing centre and “China Manufacturing 2025” pilot city, has numerous industrial workers. In 2012, Quanzhou RTVU collaborated with the Green Group and launched a junior-college Administrative Management class. Group managers, including vice president and part-time professor Chen Guocheng of Huaqiao University, were employed as instructors, with good results. In 2015, an undergraduate Business Administration class was added to assist the “Made in Quanzhou” initiative.

Wu Jiang, a young man born in Sichuan in 1992, has entered the Machine Manufacturing and Automation major jointly offered by Quanzhou RTVU and Fujian San Xing Electrical. He said, “The setup of the major, arrangement of courses, and day-to-day teaching there are well suited to the needs of migrant workers and their situations in life. The last half year and more have taught me a lot about equipment manufacturing.”

A distinctive agriculture that features tea, aquatic products, edible fungi, fruit and vegetables, flowers and other plants, and rural tourism has come into being in Ningde, which boasts proximity to mountains and the sea. The majors offered at Ningde RTVU as part of the plan include Operation and Management of Family Farms, with workers trained to promote rural revitalization and new types of rural development in East Fujian.

As Lin Yu noted,“The plan helps build the competence of industrial workers and the human capital of the nation. An army of skilled labourers will give powerful support to the aim of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way.”

Reprinted by the OUC News Network from China Education Daily