Vocational education boosts Pingyao over past 70 years

Vocational education has provided invaluable talent and intellectual support for Pingyao county's socioeconomic development since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, with a modern vocational education system having been established, according to local officials. 

They said that in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was almost no complete vocational education system in Pingyao county. The Pingyao Vocational School, founded in 1984, marked a new stage of local vocational education development.

It was renamed Pingyao Modern Engineering Technical School, with its student body increasing to 5,000 from less than 1,000. 

The school, with a construction area of 8.6 hectares, has developed into one of the high-standard and information-based vocational education centers in Shanxi province, with complete teaching infrastructure including a library, a digital management system and internship facilities. 

Another local vocational education school is Pingyao Comprehensive Vocational and Technical School. Founded in 2003 and covering a construction area of 2.14 hectares, it has completed the integration of vocational education and industrial development with improved teaching abilities and discipline development. 

In recent years, the county has made vocational education a top priority to boost employment and improve people's livelihoods. 

There are 540 vocational school teachers in the county, with more than 5,000 vocational school students learning 27 majors related to finance and trade, information technology, culture and art, mechanical processing and tourism services. 

A total of 10 school training bases for control welding, traditional craft designs and woodcarving, equipped with 158 professional laboratories and activity rooms, have been established. 

The county has also worked to set up more than 30 off-campus internship bases with  13 local travel agencies, eight foundry companies, two flower cultivation parks and one art troupe -- as well as companies and institutions in Taiyuan city, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces.