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November 17, 2016

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Home » Metro » Education

More jobs, better pay for vocational graduates

By Yang Meiping | November 17, 2016, Thursday | Print Edition

SHANGHAI’S booming economy and constant infrastructure upgrades are creating tremendous opportunities for students of vocational schools, who once saw the institutions as a second choice, education authorities said yesterday.

More than 98 percent of the 33,444 students who graduated from the city’s 79 secondary vocational schools this year are already working or seeking higher education, slightly higher than last year, according to a report by the Shanghai Education Commission.

They are also getting higher starting salaries.

One success story is 20-year-old Shen Yang, a graduate of a secondary vocational school, who recently helped his family buy an apartment in Nanhui area of Shanghai, giving them 250,000 yuan (US$36,300) of the 400,000 yuan down payment.

“I used to be disappointed that I could not get into a high school and then a university like my former classmates in middle school,” he said. “But now I’m proud that I can support my family as my father did.

His father died of lung cancer when Shen was in the final year of middle school, putting the family in a difficult situation as his grandmother was in her 90s, his mother had no job and his uncle was a deaf-mute.

Under the pressure, he failed the graduation exam and his high school application.

He was eventually admitted into the Shanghai Electric Power Industry School and later employed by the Caojing Power Co, a unit of the Shanghai Electric Power Co, in June last year with an excellent academic performance.

Only two months later, he was transferred to a project in Iraq and promoted within a year to be an assistant watchman — a position which usually takes an ordinary worker at least five years to achieve.

“I thought vocational school students would not have a bright future, but now I’m convinced that as long as you learn hard and work hard, even vocational school students can achieve success,” he said.

Zubaida, from Turpan of Xinjiang, has a similar story. She is studying fashion design and craft at the Shanghai Qunyi Vocational and Technical School.

She won a bronze medal in a national vocational competition in May, made 10,000 yuan during a summer internship in her hometown — and inspired the company to upgrade its technology by moving to computers.

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