Spatiotemporal Patterns and Drivers of the Coordinated Development Between New-Quality Productivity and Skill Formation Education

New quality productive forces (NQPF), characterized by innovation-driven growth, high operational efficiency, resource conservation and inherent green attributes, share an inherent coupling and coordinated development logic with vocational skill formation systems. Based on panel data covering 31 provincial-level administrative regions in the Chinese mainland from 2010 to 2022, this study measures the coupling coordination degree between NQPF and vocational skill formation systems, and systematically explores its driving factors and spatial evolution patterns. The main empirical findings are as follows: (1) The overall coupling coordination degree across the full sample presents a steady upward trend. At the regional subgroup level, the eastern sample maintains the highest coordination level, followed by the central sample, while the western sample remains relatively lower. (2) The spatial agglomeration intensity of the coupling coordination degree follows an inverted U-shaped trajectory, rising first and then weakening over the study period. (3) Core driving factors show remarkable regional heterogeneity. For the eastern and central subgroups, improving workforce quality and production efficiency are the key pathways to boost coupling coordination; by contrast, the western subgroup relies more on workforce quality upgrading and increased investment in material labor resources. (4) Estimation results of the Spatial Durbin Model indicate that educational foundation, educational investment and educational operation process are the core drivers of coupling coordination. Educational foundation exerts a significant positive spatial spillover effect; the ecological environment not only promotes local coordination but also generates positive spillovers to adjacent regions; while material labor resources benefit local development but produce negative spatial spillovers to neighboring areas. This study provides empirical evidence and practical references for advancing the coordinated development of NQPF and vocational skill formation systems in multi-regional transitional economies.