Vocational Education in the Service of Rural Surplus Labor Shift: Background, Problems and Solutions

China is undergoing rural labor force transfer in the context of industrial structure adjustment, continuous urbanization and intensification of the gap between the rural and the urban areas. Although Vocational Education and Training(VET) should serve for the rural surplus labor shift the reality is that VET in rural area is absent and the training for the migrant workers is insufficient, causing the unsmooth flow of rural labor force and barriers for their development in the future. Therefore, the VET in the rural area should be strengthened, building a rural VET system open for migrant workers in the cities, new and flexible for the farmers in the villages. Only in this way can we consolidate the overall-planning development and connections of VET in both rural and urban areas, altogether contributing to the rural surplus labor shift.