Finding the "Right Path" of Vocational Education: A Comparison Between China and European Countries

Nowadays, global economy is developing rapidly. Fast technological iteration boosts the transforming and upgrading of industries. The popularization of higher education in recent decades leads to a surge in the number of graduates with certificates. Various factors result in the fiercely competitive labor market today. As a consequence, unemployment has become a widespread difficulty faced by a large number of young people worldwide. In this case, vocational education has gradually become an effective way to relieve this problem and ensure sustainable economic growth. This article will discuss the social and systematical causes of the marginalization of vocational education in China. It will also compare Chinese system with two typical European vocational education patterns, apprenticeship in Denmark and dual system in Germany, in an attempt to find an ideal and relatively complete vocational education systems to deal with youth unemployment across societies. This article mainly uses comparative research method to analyze the differences between education systems. Several overall practical suggestions of improvement of vocational education system are also given.