vocational education and training in the agricultural...

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND

TRAINING IN THE AGRICULTURAL

SECTOR OF GERMANY AND

CHINA

2016 A System’s Comparison with Recommendations

for follow-up activities of the DCZ

Report by Thomas Aenis and Tang Lixia

[Vocational Education and Training in the Agricultural Sector of Germany and China]

1 Content

Content

Content ........................................................................................................................................... 1

Figures and Tables ......................................................................................................................... 3

Appendices ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................. 5

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 6

1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................................................... 6

1.2 Objectives ....................................................................................................................................................... 7

1.3 Approach ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

2 Overview of the VET Systems in Germany and China ........................................................... 9

2.1 The German VET System .............................................................................................................................. 9

2.1.1 Laws and regulations .................................................................................................................... 9

2.1.2 Changes in farm structure and consequences for farmers’ competencies ........................ 10

2.1.3 Vocational education in the “green” sector ........................................................................... 11

2.1.3.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 11

2.1.3.2 Basic vocational education: learning in the Dual System ............................................ 13

2.1.3.3 Advanced vocational education ...................................................................................... 16

2.1.3.4 Curriculum development .................................................................................................... 17

2.1.4 Short-term training ..................................................................................................................... 19

2.2 The Chinese VET System ............................................................................................................................ 20

2.2.1 Laws and regulations ................................................................................................................. 20

2.2.2 Vocational education and training .......................................................................................... 21

2.2.2.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 21

2.2.2.2 Organization ....................................................................................................................... 23

2.2.2.3 Full-time academic education for junior and senior high school graduates ............ 26

2.2.2.4 Part-time education for the new agricultural business entities................................... 27

2.2.2.5 Certified training for agricultural technical personnel ................................................ 28

2.2.2.6 Practical short-term technical training for new type of

agricultural business entities ............................................................................................. 29


2 Content

2.2.3 The main features of VET in China .......................................................................................... 31

2.3 Comparison of the German and the Chinese Systems .......................................................................... 33

3 Field research in China ......................................................................................................... 38

3.1 Problems of Current Agricultural Vocational Training in China ......................................................... 38

3.2 Target Groups for Agricultural Vocational Training in China ............................................................. 41

3.3 Competencies of farmers and teachers .................................................................................................. 42

3.4 Chinese Expectations towards Germany ................................................................................................ 43

4 Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................................................... 43

5 Literature ............................................................................................................................... 47

6 Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 50


3 Figures and Tables

Figures and Tables

Figure 1: Basic structure of vocational education in Agriculture ................................................................. 12

Figure 2: Curriculum Development and coordination instruments ............................................................... 18

Figure 3: Basic structure of Agricultural Vocational Education and Training ........................................... 22

Table 1: Changes of farm size in Germany between 1995 and 2013 ................................................... 10

Table 2: Selected state-approved professions of the green sector

and number of trainees in 2013 ..................................................................................................... 14

Table 3: Number of successful graduates in Master Education in the Green sector .............................. 17

Table 4: Number of vocational colleges and schools in China ................................................................... 24

Table 5: Number of full-time teachers of secondary vocational schools .................................................. 24

Table 6: Farmers’ training at Wenzhou College of Science & Technology ............................................. 25

Table 7: Number of students in different types of vocational schools in China in 2014 ....................... 27

Table 8: Class-hour requirement for the secondary vocational education curricula

of new type of professional farmers ............................................................................................. 28

Table 9: “Textual research” training courses of Wenzhou College of Science and Technology ......... 29

Table 10: Short-term farmers training projects of

Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology (selection) ................................... 30

Table 11: Approved projects of demonstration vocational education and training

bases across the country ................................................................................................................ 32

Table 12: Funding of Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology ................................... 33

Table 13: Comparison of framework conditions for VET in agriculture .................................................... 34

Table 14: Comparison of the VET systems in Germany and China ........................................................... 35

Table 15: Comparison of programs and degrees in vocational education ............................................. 36

Table 16: Teaching force of the designated vocational training institutions in Pingdu City ................. 39

Table 17: Class hours and proportions of majors at Pingdu Vocational Education Center .................. 40

Table 18: Time Schedule .................................................................................................................................... 54

Table 19: Overview on Group Discussions ..................................................................................................... 55

Table 20: Gross value added of Agriculture and Food production sectors in Germany ...................... 58

Table 21: German agricultural companies according to their legal entity and selected attributes ... 59


4 Appendices

Appendices

Appendix 1: Terms of reference ...................................................................................................................... 50

Appendix 2: Time schedule and research topics ........................................................................................... 54

Appendix 3: Names of persons, schools and institutions visited (for internal use) .................................. 57

Appendix 4: Background information on the agricultural structure in Germany

and its changes in recent years .............................................................................................. 58

Appendix 5: Agriculture map of Germany .................................................................................................... 60

Appendix 6: The General education System in Germany .......................................................................... 61

Appendix 7: Education Pathways in Agriculture (Germany) ....................................................................... 62

Appendix 8: Education of Agricultural Company Leaders in Germany (2013) ..................................... 63

Appendix 9: Overview on Schools of Advanced Vocational Education

in Agriculture, Forestry and Household Economics in Germany ........................................ 64

Appendix 10: The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training BIBB ................................... 65

Appendix 11: Extension Organization in Germany ..................................................................................... 67

Appendix 12: Contents of No.1 Central Documents on farmers' vocational education

and training over the years ................................................................................................... 68

Appendix 13: China's Main Policies on the Development of Farmers'

Vocational Education and Training ....................................................................................... 70

Appendix 14: List of important training programs for farmers ................................................................. 72

Appendix 15: List of farmers' vocational education and training programs in Beijing ......................... 75

Appendix 16: List of the agricultural universities and colleges in China .................................................. 76

Appendix 17: Some agricultural vocational colleges in China ................................................................... 78


5 Abbreviations

Abbreviations

AID Agrar Informationsdienst

AVT Agricultural Vocational Training

BIBB Federal Institute of Vocational Education, Germany

BMBF Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany

BMEL Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Germany

CPC Communist Party of China

DCZ German-Sino Agricultural Center

DLG German Agricultural Society

EU European Union

FRG Federal Republic of Germany

KMK Conference of Cultural Ministers of the German States

LGOP Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and

Development, China

MoA Ministry of Agriculture, China

MoE Ministry of Education, China

NGO Non-Governmental Organization

PRC Peoples Republic of China

PVEC Pingdu Vocational Education Centre

SME Small and Medium Enterprise

VE Vocational Education

VET Vocational Education and Training

WVCST Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology


6 Vocational Education and Training in the Agricultural Sector of Germany and China

Vocational Education and Training in the Agricultural Sector of Germany and China

A S Y S T E M ’ S C O M P A R I S O N W I T H R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S F O R

F O L L O W - U P A C T I V I T I E S O F T H E D C Z

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

China is a key country for bilateral cooperation of the German Federal Ministry of Food and

Agriculture (BMEL). To intensify the bilateral exchange-relations, the BMEL and the Chinese Ministry

of Agriculture (MoA) have agreed establishing a German-Sino Agricultural Center (DCZ). It is an

important contribution to both, the implementation of the Sino-German Comprehensive Strategic

Partnership and China’s modernization in agriculture. The Center forms a roof for all BMEL activities

in China. It is focusing on policy dialogue, vocational training, science and research, coordination of

the agricultural and food industries, and interagency cooperation. It is intended to promote the

coherent implementation of all bilateral measures and provide a common platform for dialogue and

cooperation for all German and Chinese actors.

The agricultural sector of China is facing various challenges, such as food security, competitiveness,

food safety, environmental hazards, sustainable agriculture, and labor migration from the rural to

the urban areas. The Chinese Government wants to tackle the challenges through technological

modernization of the sector. Science and research are the basis, but technologies and know-how

need to reach farmers to become effective. As farmers need to professionalize, education and

knowledge transfer systems have to adapt to this new demand. Germany can provide long lasting

and internationally recognized experience in vocational education systems.

VET concepts are a well-established approach in the bilateral cooperation between Germany and

China, mostly focusing on the industrial sector, such as automotive industry. In agriculture, there are

several initiatives for training of farmers. However, there seems little systematization and discussion

on the political and institutional level. So far, DCZ has little knowledge on how the Chinese

agricultural VET system is working in practice. The same lack of knowledge on the Chinese side

concerning the German system was reported to DCZ.


7 Introduction

1.2 Objectives

The purpose of the assessment of agricultural vocational education and training systems of both

countries is to lay the conceptual ground for the DCZ component on Vocational Training Concept in

the Agricultural Sector.1

Expected output are options for further action respectively proposals for future activities. Envisaged

follow-up activities could be in-depth investigations on certain priority models, including study visits

to the other country or the elaboration of proposals for practical implementation of training

measures, such as curricula development, train the trainers etc. Specific objectives are

An overview of the vocational education and training systems of both countries will be

provided and both systems will be compared. Vocational education hereby is understood as

long-term qualification measures, mainly for Young people in the age of 16+, i.e. on

secondary level, whereby training is understood as short term qualification measures, mostly

for adults;

Important challenges (problems, difficulties) for an improvement of the Chinese agricultural

VET system will be identified as well as starting points for German-Chinese cooperation, as

per expert’s opinion (i.e. their learning interests);

Priority fields of action will be identified and subsumed in recommendations for further action

for the DCZ.

This assignment intends to generate a concise picture of the situation which reflects experts’

knowledge. The focus of the assignment lies on praxis-relevance and communicability amongst

Chinese and German experts rather than validity in a statistical matter.

1.3 Approach

The approach consisted of several steps of qualitative research. It follows the principles of a rapid

and participatory appraisal which allows for a high level of feedback by VET experts on the one

hand and a crosscheck of data on the other, thus enabling a high reliability level of information:

For an overview of the vocational education and training systems in both countries, available

literature including grey literature has been screened and analyzed according to predefined

criteria; The main policy documents about regulations on VET and programs, the websites of

key vocational schools and college and some academic articles on this topic have been

reviewed;

Field observations of practical experiences have complemented the description of the VET

system. Three vocational training schools in Wenzhou, Pingdu and Beijing have been visited in

order to get an impression on their teaching, equipment (classrooms, media etc.), logistic

arrangements, practical training and associated cooperative farms and companies. During

the field visit, meetings and workshops with administrative staff, teachers and trainees -

altogether more than 50 participants - have been organized in order to discuss current

teaching arrangements and their expectations (for field work topics see appendix 2).

The preliminary findings have provided a basis for a number of interviews with different key

stakeholders in order to evaluate the system from their perspective. Core issues were policies

and main regulations, the main problems and challenges as well as options for future action).

1 For the detailed Terms of Reference see Appendix 1.


8 Introduction

Interviews respectively group discussions have been conducted with five persons from

relevant ministries (MoA and MoE), 10 persons from Vocational schools (leaders and

teachers) and with four experts of Sino-German cooperation projects;

Preliminary findings have been presented in two workshops with stakeholders in China and

discussed with regard to future challenges of the Chinese VET system and, again, options for

future activities within DCZ.

Based on the above described investigations conclusions and recommendations for follow-up

activities have been elaborated and are documented in this report. Appendix 2 provides a time

schedule and the topics of field work, and appendix 3 provides names of persons, schools and

institutions visited.


9 Overview of the VET Systems in Germany and China


2.1 The German VET System

2.1.1 Laws and regulations

Basic and advanced vocational education of the citizen is a political objective of utmost importance,

and every German should have the opportunity to participate in vocational education. First launched

in 1969, the Federal Vocational Education Act (FRG 2005, cf. BMBF 2015a) constitutes the basis for

all vocational education. It governs 328 state-approved vocations (in 2015) of which 14 are within

the Green sector (AID INFODIENST 2013 and table 4). The act defines the principles of basic and

advanced vocational education, particularly the two main locations of learning – companies and

vocational schools –, and frames the organization of the Dual System and its coordination as

described in Section 2.1.4. The main objective of all vocational education is to impart through

systematic programs, “… the vocational skills, knowledge and qualifications (vocational competence)

necessary to engage in a form of skilled occupational activity in a changing working world”. In other

words: to develop individual capacities for professional activity. In addition, basic vocational

education shall enable trainees to acquire the necessary occupational experience, and advanced

vocational education shall “… enable individuals to maintain and upgrade or broaden their vocational

competence and advance their careers” (BMBF 2015). In order to support persons in need, laws have

been passed for both, the support of basic (FRG 2010) and of advanced vocational education (FRG

2012).

Each state-approved profession is subject to basic vocational education within the Dual System (see

below):

At the company level, vocational education is ruled by the federal government through the

Decree of Trainer Eligibility (FRG 2009) and through Vocational Education Decrees

(Ausbildungsordnung) which exist for each single state-approved vocation (for further

information see BIBB 2014, 2015). The latter include a General Description of the Educational

Profession (Ausbildungsberufsbild), a framework vocational education plan

(Ausbildungsrahmenplan) which summarizes those competencies which all apprentices need to

acquire (for details see BIBB 2014/2015), and examination procedures.;

Due to the “cultural sovereignty” of the German Federal States, all school-related education

matters principally are subject to legislation on Federal State level. For vocational schools as

location of learning, the Conference of State Cultural Ministers (KMK) decides on framework

school curricula which are in line with the respective decree on vocational education (cf. KMK

2015).

Both means of regulation jointly form the legal basis for the Dual System. The Educational Decree of

each vocation (including the framework education plan) and the respective Framework School

Curriculum are jointly published in the Federal Law Gazette.

In contrast to vocational education, short-term vocational training is a market and its organization

therefore not regulated by laws. However, there is usually a legal basis which provides an incentive

to participate in the training: For example, “good professional practice” in plant production is

defined by law (BMBF 2015); users of plant protecting agents must prove their expertise which will

only be certified after participation in a training.



2.1.2 Changes in farm structure and consequences for farmers’ competencies

As mentioned above, vocational education (and training) in Germany generally intends to develop

competencies which allow the then-“professionals” to succeed in their job. For farmers, as an

example, these competencies are related to the farm and its production processes. As these have

been changing over the years, demands on competencies are also changing. Appendix 4 provides

more detailed background information on the agricultural structures in Germany and changes

thereof in recent years.

Typically, German farms are mixed farms, viz., they cultivate a crop rotation of cereals, potatoes,

beet etc., and they keep animals as well. Besides, there exist companies that are highly specialized

on either a certain animal (dairy cattle, pig fattening or breeding, laying hens, broilers), on field

crops, orchards, vineyards or on specific vegetables such as asparagus. For an agricultural map of

Germany see Appendix 5. Approximately 10% of farms have meanwhile changed from

conventional to organic production.

Family farms are the great majority of the total number of farms. Slightly less than half of these

create their main income (>85%) through agriculture or horticulture. Nearly half of all farms still are

part time farms of less than 5 ha on average. Whereas private and corporate enterprises count for

only about 2% of the companies, they are responsible for more than a third of the overall crop and

animal production. Due to historic reasons there are great differences in the farm structure between

the Western (”old states”) and the “new” Eastern federal states (the area of the former German

Democratic Republic). Family farms of 50ha in average and private enterprises dominate in the

Western states, whereas in the Eastern states large corporate bodies dominate the sector, often

cultivating more than 2,000ha, some even 7,000ha.

Table 1: Changes of farm size in Germany between 1995 and 2013

Farm size in ha

Year 1995 1999 2003 2005 2007 2010 2013

Western/ Old states 30.4 33.9 38 40.1 42 44.5 46.7

Eastern/ New states 273.2 251.1 249.6 250.6 248.2 249.1 251.7

Germany 42.8 47.6 52.7 55.5 58 61.3 64

Source: BMEL 2015, modified

In the last 20 years the average size of farms has seen an increase of more than 50% (Table 1),

with the average in eastern Germany staying nearly constant or slightly decreasing. This reflects an

ongoing structural change, mainly in the former western part of Germany: Many farms are given up

while the remaining ones grow rapidly, mainly by farmers’ renting land from their former

neighboring farmers.

The trend towards larger farms creates a challenge for the VET system insofar as the key

competencies farmers need to obtain are also changing: Besides the ability to cultivate their land

according to the rules of “good farming practice”, more and more competencies are needed in

planning and implementing sustainable production according to market needs, which also requires

the ability to analyze markets. Other key competencies are identified among so-called soft skills



such as communication with customers and in teams, as well as in human resources management. And,

last but not least, in a rapidly changing world there is the need to develop “self-competencies”: the

ability to get access to information and make use of this information, i.e., to learn in a self-organized

way. This is a challenge for vocational training methodology which has to support the acquisition of

such action-oriented professional competences.

2.1.3 Vocational education in the “green” sector

2.1.3.1 Overview

Vocational education in Germany builds upon a complex general education system which opens up a

great range of learning opportunities to students, and which differs from other systems (see

Appendix 6). It offers three levels after elementary school, the “general” school (Hauptschule),

middle school (Realschule), and grammar school (Gymnasium). General and middle schools usually

end after grade 10. Grammar school leads to Abitur (A-levels, High School Diploma) after the 12th

or 13th grade and qualifies for university studies. This system allows tailor-made education for

different learning abilities of pupils and for them to choose an individual way of education. Most of

the pupils coming from general and middle schools choose qualification for a specific vocation later-

on; students with high school diploma rather go for further academic studies at universities.

The German system of vocational education is internationally seen as a model of success, mainly due

to its systematic procedures linking practical and theoretical training. This allows professional

competencies to be built which fit well with the demand of industries and the job market, as well as

various possibilities for further qualification that highly motivate individuals and also are often

honored with higher salaries. The unemployment rate of Youth in Germany is at 7.4%, the lowest in

Europe (EU28: 21.9 %, Euro-Zone: 23.7 %; source: BMBF 2015). Figure 1 shows the vocational

education system in Agriculture in a simplified way. For a detailed overview on education pathways

in Agriculture see Appendix 7.



Source: own; pictograms: www.iconarchive.com/

Figure 1: Basic structure of vocational education in Agriculture

The “practical pathway” consists of basic and advanced vocational education. Basic vocational

education is an apprenticeship lasting for three years which enables graduates to work in a self-

organized and qualified manner. Students coming from general or middle schools are qualified for

the state-approved profession “farmer”. After three years and successful exams, they receive a

diploma and are thus able to manage a family farm or work as an employee in larger farms2. More

than 90% of all family farmers as well as about two-thirds of the part-time farmers have received

basic agricultural education, which shows a great acceptance of this form of education among

farmers (Appendix 8)

After two years of further work experience, persons holding a farmer diploma may attend a master

or technician course of one to two years in specialized agricultural schools. This type of advanced

education mainly trains further skills in farm management and work-related pedagogics, thus

qualifying for both, management of larger farms and the ability to practically train apprentices on-

farm. Advanced vocational education leads to a “Master” or “Technician” certificate. Masters of their

2 Note: There is no formal precondition to manage a farm. Practically, almost all young farmers nowadays have received

at least basic vocational education.

http://www.iconarchive.com/



occupation are often very well renowned and respected persons. More than 40% of all main-income

family farmers as well as more than 50% of leaders of private companies are master-farmers or

technicians. Formally, the Master Farmers have obtained with this certificate the possibility to study

at universities of applied science.

The higher education pathway leads to qualifications for the management of larger farms,

agricultural administration, research or agri-business, and in agricultural extension. More than two-

third of all company leaders as well as the vast majority of advisors in extension and most trainers

of inter-company training units (see below) hold a university degree (appendix 8). Teachers at

Vocational Schools regularly also are qualified at universities and have received a master of

education; to be a full-qualified teacher, an additional one-year internship in a school is a

precondition.

A big challenge is so-called permeability. This means the possibility to learn in different courses and

get higher degrees, even for those who origin from the lower levels of the educational system. There

are several possibilities to come to higher levels, and to combine higher and vocational education

(Appendix 7). Due to a good reputation of vocational education in the Dual System, it is nowadays

quite common for a grammar school graduate to do a practical apprenticeship in a green profession

first and work for some time on the job before going for further studies. A challenge remains

regarding the generation of pathways for general and middle school graduates who would like to

study at university after their vocational education.

Financing

General, basic vocational and higher education is free of cost for students in Germany, except for

some material costs. The expenses for the practical part of the Dual Education are covered by the

companies who also have to pay an education allowance to their apprentices. The amount of the

allowance is ruled in detail by trade agreements negotiated by the unions and the employer

organizations. All schools are financed by the federal states, as education is a state duty.

In contrast, all advanced vocational education and training in principle must be paid by the students,

and even the state-run vocational schools charge for their courses. However, in order to grant equal

opportunities between advanced vocational education and higher education, a number of state

subsidies have been established for advanced vocational education, particularly for the master and

technician tracks (LANDWIRTSCHAFTSKAMMER NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN 2013, for details see BILDUNGSSERVER

AGRAR).

2.1.3.2 Basic vocational education: learning in the Dual System

The basic philosophy of basic vocational education in the German Dual System is that young persons

are trained

on the job

in modern up-to-date agriculture

on the best farms

by the elite of farmers,

while receiving additional theoretical knowledge in vocational schools.



Apprentices must work (and usually live) for at least two complete seasons on at least one, better

two different farms, which in principle must not be their own family farm. There they are trained by

Master-Farmers, learn what and how to farm, and also to work effectively and efficiently. Table 2

gives an overview of the number of apprenticeships in selected professions of the “green” sector.

Table 2: Selected state-approved professions of the green sector and number of trainees in 2013

Selected state-approved professions number of trainees Selected state-approved professions number of trainees

Farmer (m/f) 8,730 Agro-Service Specialist (m/f) 603

Animal Husbandry Specialist (m/f) 930 Horse Husbandry Specialist (m/f) 1,626

Fisher (m/f) 228 Home Economics Specialist (m/f) 159

Vinegrower 858 Gardener (m/f) 13,152

Forester (m/f) 1,731 Hunter (m/f) 66

Dairy Technologist (m/f) 681 Laboratory Assistant in Agriculture /

in Dairy Technology (m/f) 510

Source: AID INFODIENST, BMEL 2014

Organization of the Dual System

The Dual System is named after the two learning locations, namely practical learning of professional

skills in companies, and theoretical learning of professional knowledge in Vocational Schools. There

exist three main pillars:

Practical training in companies (farms) supervised by practitioners;

Theoretical but very applied training in Vocational schools;

Practical inter-company training on so-called “Inter-Company Training Units”

(Überbetriebliche Ausbildungsstätten).

As mentioned before, practical on-farm training is the core of the education. Apprentices learn their

future profession while working on a farm together with the farmer and trained colleagues, usually

for four days a week. The farm must be certified as a training farm and the farmer must be a

certified trainer. That usually means that he is a “Master Farmer” or higher who has also passed a

course on “vocation and work-related pedagogics”. Even university-trained farmers have to pass this

course in order to be allowed to train apprentices practically. As mentioned above, the practical

training is done while working. That means, it is up to the farmer - or in case of large companies the

certified trainer - to explain and supervise all activities. He/she is obliged to ensure that the

apprentice is trained in all activities of the farm. Selection of the apprentices is a matter between the

company and the trainee only. It is up to the farmer to select their apprentices. And it is up to the

young man or lady (respectively their parents in case of the underaged) to search for a training

opportunity and apply for the apprenticeship.

Vocational schools are under legislation of the federal states. Every federal state operates several

large vocational education centers which offer courses in both, the basic vocational and in the

advanced education (see below). For an overview on schools and student numbers see Appendix 9.



Every county usually operates at least one vocational training school which offers vocational

education for various state-approved vocations. The types of classes offered in the schools depend

mainly on the demand and the kind of industry that has settled in the region. All trainees of an

occupation in a certain year form a class (sometimes two or three, depending on the number of

apprentices). This means that there usually are three classes a year, one for the first, the second and

the third training year. Apprentices must attend vocational schools regularly once or twice a week. A

place in school is guaranteed to every apprentice who has a contract. The centers usually are co-

financed by the county and, mainly, the federal state (Bundesland).

Farms (as well as companies in other industries) nowadays are more specialized, viz., they can not

offer all aspects which apprentices must learn. For example, not every farm operates all technique

such as e.g. combined harvesters. Therefore it is necessary to organize a third pillar for practical

training, the so called “inter-company training”. This kind of training is usually short-term and

organized on farms or on special training centers. The latter can be e.g. state-owned experimental

centers or institutes under private law such as the DEULA. These organizations normally offer short-

term vocational trainings, too. Inter-Company Training Units formally belong to the “practical”

learning location.

Decentralized coordination of VE

For every single apprenticeship a contract between the apprentice and the farmer or farm manager

is compulsory. The contract defines:

The education period as stipulated in the regulations of the federal vocational education act:

The training usually lasts for three years, beginning on September 1st. It ends with the date of

examination. The “Responsible Institution” (see below) will assist in finding farmers. Once an

apprenticeship contract is signed, the apprentice has a legal right to complete the training;

The duration of training can be shortened or extended under certain conditions: Shortening of

up to one year is possible if the trainee had completed high school or a fulltime agricultural

vocational school; extension will happen if a trainee had no school certificate at all;

Termination of employment: the probationary period usually is three months. After that,

trainees are by law largely protected against dismissal.

Training contents: An individual company training plan is annexed to the contract. Master

farmers are enabled in their training to develop an individual training plan. This plan should

be oriented towards the needs and special work conditions of their farm but must still fulfill

the demands as specified in the respective Vocational Education Decree;

Allowance paid to the trainee: The amount is determined by a collective agreement within

the agricultural chamber. Usually it amounts to about 15-20% of a regular salary of a

qualified worker. It increases over the three years because the trainee can work better and

more self-organized.

There are 13,500 new apprenticeship contracts per year in agriculture, compared with 350,000 in

industry and 150,000 in crafts (BMBF 2015).

All vocational education is coordinated on state level by “Responsible Institutions for Vocational

Education” (“Zuständige Stelle”). These are - for the agricultural sector - in South and Eastern

Germany departments of the state ministries of Agriculture, in Northern Germany the Chambers of



Agriculture, i.e. the farmers’ professional organizations. For a detailed list see BIBB 2015. Duties of a

Responsible Institution are:

Selection and approval of those farms who are allowed to train apprentices;

Approval of practical trainers (precondition: certificate in work-related pedagogics and

practical work experience of two years);

Supervision of apprenticeship contracts (one copy is stored); mediation in case of conflicts;

Support to farmers and apprentices in all aspects of an apprenticeship;

Organization of the examinations: selection of a committee of practitioners and teachers as

well as organization of examinations;

Hand-out of diplomas.

Examinations

An interim examination is organized by the Responsible Institution after one-an-a-half year as well as

the final practical examination at the end of a training period. Furthermore, the apprentice has to

document in daily or weekly reports what he/she has learned. The report book is part of the

examination and will be graded by external evaluators, usually Master Farmers. Passing of

theoretical examinations in the vocational schools is a precondition for the practical examinations, so

that passing the practical examination the apprentice is immediately granted the title of “qualified

worker”.

2.1.3.3 Advanced vocational education

The German system distinguishes between two main forms of advanced or “further” vocational

education (Fortbildung): profession-related and job-related advanced education:

Profession-related advanced education is a higher qualification of state-approved professions (see

figure 1). There are two formal ranks, namely the master and the technician of the respective state-

approved basic profession, for example the master farmer, fishery-master, master-gardener, master

dairy-technician etc. The master is generally more oriented towards skills in managing a company

whereby the technician is rather oriented towards mastering technologies in the respective sector.

Both are qualified to lead (larger) companies and also to train young people in the Dual System. In

our opinion these are a key to innovation of farms because they are experienced market-oriented

farmers who share their experience with the young generation. Table 3 gives an overview of

successful Master graduates in recent years.



Table 3: Number of successful graduates in Master Education in the Green sector

Source: BMEL 2015

Job-related advanced education trains specific expertise and occupational skills such as the

“agricultural expert in green-keeping”, the “state-examined claw-trimmer”, the “specialist in direct-

marketing”, the agricultural clerk etc., which also enable to operate specified enterprises. This form

of advanced education ends formally with an approved specialist diploma.

Both forms of advanced vocational education built on the basic vocational education in the Dual

System. Holding a diploma in a state-approved profession and two years of work practice in this

profession are a precondition for further qualification. Advanced vocational education normally is

subject to long-term training at state vocational education centers. Trainees must regularly

participate in one to two-year schools and successfully pass state examinations. For an overview on

schools and lists of courses see BILDUNGSSERVER AGRAR. Courses are offered for both, full-time students

and part-time students. Some are organized in the winter term only, and there are weekend courses

for working students. Approximately one-third of all farmers with a basic diploma attend advanced

education.

2.1.3.4 Curriculum development

Curricula are developed at basic vocational and advanced Master/Technician level of each state-

approved profession for both in-company education and vocational schools, and certainly for each

training measure (see figure 2). This is a political challenge for coordination because a multitude of

institutions is involved.

As a principle, the concrete curriculum for each single education and training measure is developed

by the respective entity, viz., the vocational school, the inter-company training organization, and the

farms/companies for every single apprenticeship. The latter are assisted by the Responsible

Institution.

The main instrument of coordination is the co-development of framework vocational education plans

and framework school curricula. Both function as binding orientation for entities that elaborate the

above-mentioned detailed curricula.

Framework curricula for vocational schools include a description of the fields of learning, overall

learning objectives and contents, and a time frame for the class hours estimated to achieve the



learning objectives. They do not include methodological guidelines as these are the duty of the school

respectively the teachers who then specify the framework curricula into school curricula and

syllabuses for school subjects.

Framework vocational education plans describe skills and knowledge which are to be trained in each

year of the apprenticeship at the company. For each apprentice this plan should be adapted to the

individual learning capacities of the person (individual education plan). For example the framework

education plan for farmers specifies competencies in the following fields:

1. The Farm and its relations: it functions, resources, internal and external relationships,

vocational education, working and tariff law regulations, working security, environmental

aspects, rational energy and material use;

2. Working techniques and organization: use of machines, planning and control of production

and marketing, planning of resources, business communication, collection of information,

evaluation of work flows;

3. Plant production: cultivation of soils, sustainable soil fertility, crop production techniques,

planning and evaluation of the different cultivation steps, harvesting procedures and

techniques;

4. Animal production: efficient and environmentally sustainable husbandry appropriate to the

species, use of animals, ethical aspects.

Figure 2: Curriculum Development and coordination instruments



The process of regulating and coordinating vocational education along the professions is insofar

complicated as representatives of several federal and state ministries (responsible for school

education), of workers’ unions and employers’ organizations are to be involved. Procedures of

coordination are regulated by an agreement between federal and state governments (“joint

memorandum”). The Federal Institute of Vocational Training (BIBB) is the key coordinating institution,

responsible for research on the professions, for facilitating the process of structuring and re-

structuring the professions, and for supporting the implementation process (BIBB 2015). For details

see Appendix 10 and BIBB 2015.

2.1.4 Short-term training

There are an uncountable number of short-term training courses in all agricultural fields, and for

many different target groups. The BILDUNGSSERVER AGRAR alone lists more than 1,000 courses offered

in 2015. Training courses are principally open for everybody; often they update or refresh

knowledge and skills attained in basic and advanced education. Trainings and seminars are offered

in all fields of expertise: production-oriented courses such as the chainsaw license, courses in

marketing, courses that build social skills (e.g. working in teams) etc. The main difference to

“education” is the great variety of providers, and that the trainings and seminars normally are to be

paid by the trainees themselves. In Germany training is market-based and not regulated by the

authorities.

Training is provided by a large number of public and private organizations. The main players are

The state vocational education centers;

The inter-company training institutes which are often co-funded by the states and

professional organizations of farmers and gardeners. One of the most important institutes is

the DEULA, a membership association with a focus on technological training which has more

than 80,000 trainees per year and offers courses in all technological fields;

Extension service providers: the German extension system is pluralistic, with the ministries

being the main providers in South-Western Germany, the Chambers of Agriculture in the

North-Western part, and private companies in the Eastern part. Additionally, farmers’

associations exist all over Germany, with their roof organization “Deutscher

Bauernverband”. Many farmers are furthermore aligned in circles (“Ringe”) or work groups.

All of these are privately organized and involved in extension and training (for further

information see Appendix 11 as well as Hoffmann, Lamers and Kidd 2000);

Private professional organizations such as the DLG – German Agricultural Society which

operates an own academy with seminars in all fields of agricultural and food production as

well as agro-business, and which are open to trainees from all over the world;

Private companies of the agro-industry which offer product-related trainings, e.g. in pest

and disease management.



2.2 The Chinese VET System

2.2.1 Laws and regulations

Vocational education and training is increasingly recognized by the Chinese Government as a key

for rural development. A series of macro policies has therefore been launched which intends to guide

and promote the professional development of farmers through vocational education. The most

important regulatory document is the Government’s Macro Guidance and Rural Development Policy -

No.13. In 2008, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided about a Rural

Reform to Promote Development. This initiative was adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 17th

Central Committee of the CPC. Rural secondary vocational education will be developed gradually

by:

Implementation of free vocational education;

Strengthening talented farmers’ skills in order to achieve large numbers of skilled

practitioners;

Enhancing universities’ capabilities to educate and send talents to rural areas;

Promoting the development of agricultural sciences and related disciplines;

Encouraging talents to work in rural areas;

Strengthening distance education.

Objectives of the regulation to be achieved by vocational education and training include:

An increased number of qualified practitioners. Important target groups are migrant workers,

new agricultural business operators (e.g. leaders of “planter-households”, principals of

professional cooperatives, new farmers) as well as trained junior and senior middle school

graduates;

A change of farmers' vocational education pattern: from short-term skills training to a

combination of practical skills and academic education;

A constant update of the contents of farmers' vocational education; the focus changes from

non-farming to farming skills, agricultural production technologies and agricultural production

management;

Changes in the education objectives themselves, mainly from promoting non-farming

employment of rural laborers to promoting the development of agricultural production and

cultivation within new farms (i.e., market oriented family farms).

In order to meet the demands of Central Document No.1, various Ministries have issued policy

documents to provide specific guidance for farmers’ vocational education and training. For an

overview see Appendix 13. For example, the Ministries of Education and of Agriculture have jointly

issued the "New Professional Farmers Training Program of Secondary Vocational Schools". The

program provides guidelines for basic vocational education, categories of professionals, training

3 For an overview on policies of the last decade related to vocational education as launched in No.1 Central Documents

see appendix 12.



agencies, and detailed training objectives, course curricula, teaching methods, teaching management,

examination and assessment as well as a credit system for the new professional farmers’ training.

Compared to Central Document No.1, the documents issued by these bodies are more specific

regarding the target groups, as well as methods and contents of education and training. Target

groups are unemployed rural junior / senior middle school graduates, migrant workers, farm

business operators, rural technical service personnel, veterans and rural grassroots cadres.

Eventually, China has established specific forms of farmers’ vocational education and training for

huge numbers of people with specific training methods and contents for the various target groups.

2.2.2 Vocational education and training

2.2.2.1 Overview

Vocational education and training in China is very diverse in terms of:

1) Governance: The Ministries of Education, of Agriculture, of Science and Technology, the State

Forestry Administration, the State Administration of Grain, the Ministry of Water Resources, the

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security as well as the State Council Leading Group Office

of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP) all have their own farmers’ training programs.

2) Education institutions: agricultural colleges and universities, academies of agricultural sciences,

agricultural vocational and technical colleges and schools as well as the agricultural broadcasting

and television school system. In addition, some local non-agricultural training institutions also offer

various types of trainings for farmers.

3) Programs and Courses: in order to meet the needs of different target groups, full-time academic

education, part-time education, “certified” training (chapter 2.2.2.5) and practical technical training

programs are provided.

There are many different approaches for different target groups, rather than an integrated single

system of vocational education and training. Figure 3 provides a very basic structure for agricultural

VET which is mainly governed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture.



Figure 3: Basic structure of Agricultural Vocational Education and Training

Vocational education includes full-time vocational degree education for students and part-time

vocational degree education for farmers. The Chinese vocational education system is mainly school-

based. Agricultural vocational education in China is free of charge, and the students and farmers

may also get daily subsidies from the Government. Courses are offered by agricultural vocational

colleges and schools.

Vocational trainings are offered without and with certification. Short-term training without certificate

is free to farmers; trainings with certification should be paid by the trainees. The MoE is mainly in

charge of vocational education and MoA is mainly responsible for vocational training. Short-term

training can be offered by vocational colleges and schools, agricultural universities and academies,

agricultural enterprises, private vocational training institutes.

Government-led trainings can be divided into training organized by government departments and

training held by so-called agricultural science and technology promotion service agencies. For an

overview see appendix 14. At the level of central government, a series of farmer training programs

have been held nationwide, including the "Green Certificate Project" launched in 1990, the "cross-

century young farmers’ technology training" held during the period from 1999 to 2005, the "special

action on spark science and technology training" launched in 2003, the "new farmers’ technology

training" launched in 2006, the "sunshine project of rural labor transfer training" during the period

from 2011 to 2014, the "rural practical talents’ leadership training program launched in 2011 and

the "modern young farmer program launched in 2015, etc. Most of the government-led trainings are

projects, targeting at a wide range of people and usually implemented by training agencies. Local

governments have also introduced a number of farmers training programs for local development,

such as the "Project of Quality Improvement of Ten Million Rural Labors in Zhejiang Province" and the

Vocational

Education

Vocational

Training

Full-time,

with degree

Part-time,

with degree

MoE MoE and

MoA

Vocational

colleges and

schools

Short-term,

no certificate

Short-term,

with certificate

MoA MoE +

MoA

Vocational

colleges

and

schools

Agricultural

Universities

and

Academies

Agric.

Enter-

prises

Private

training

institutes

Program

Governance

Provider



"Skills Training Project for One Million Migrant Workers in Jiangsu Province" (as an example see

appendix 15 for Beijing).

It is important to mention that vocational education is mainly for non-farming jobs. The great

majority of smallholder farmers did and does not receive vocational education; therefore, the main

source for qualification of farmers is training. More recently, vocational education is being offered

within the above-mentioned New Professional Farmers Cultivation Program, in form of a trial. Hereby

both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture are involved. The MoE is in charge of

formal education and manages credits and procedures for an applied degree. The MoA is

responsible for professional supervision of vocational schools and courses required. In addition, MoA

also offers short-term vocational training to farmers.

2.2.2.2 Organization

Farmers' vocational education and training in China is implemented at:

Agricultural research institutions;

Vocational schools and colleges;

The Agricultural broadcasting and Television school system;

Agricultural enterprises;

Grassroots agricultural technology extension agencies and training agencies, including adult

schools, community schools, etc.

Agricultural research institutions usually provide part-time education to management and technical

personnel of agricultural departments on “grassroot level”. Additionally, they host farmers training

projects, usually involving teachers from agricultural vocational colleges and schools. There are more

than 40 agricultural universities and colleges in China which also offer training programs. Deducted

from their names, their expertise is in various fields including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, etc.

Almost every province (municipality, autonomous region) has agricultural universities or colleges.

These universities and colleges are important training bases for Chinese research, technical and

management talents in the field of agriculture. Academy systems of agricultural sciences have been

established too, at central, provincial, city and county level. The central academies of agricultural

sciences include the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Beijing), Chinese Academy of Tropical

Agricultural Sciences (Hainan) and the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (Jiangsu). All provinces,

large municipalities, and autonomous regions have a provincial academy of agricultural sciences,

and most cities and counties have local academies.

Recently some municipal and county academies of agricultural sciences are being merged into local

agricultural vocational education institutions, thus reducing the number of city and county academies

of agricultural sciences. For example, Wenzhou City Academy of Agricultural Sciences has been

integrated into Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology. Formally, both co-exist as

a one-team-under-two-entities arrangement in China. Now, due to the reputation of its predecessor,

this college has set agriculture-related curricula and recruits more than 1000 students every year.



The main providers of agricultural vocational education are Vocational Schools (senior vocational

schools and secondary vocational schools) and Vocational colleges. There are huge numbers of

vocational schools which are either governmentally or privately operated. The latter are very

popular for non-agricultural jobs with strong market orientation such as construction workers,

electricity workers, machinery maintenance. Trainees are supposed to pay the fees by themselves.

For agriculture, private vocational schools are not yet established.

It is difficult to make an accurate estimation of the overall number of China’s vocational education

institutions for agriculture. Table 4 shows the overall structure. According to data of the Ministry of

Education, there are about 300 agriculture-related vocational colleges in China, including 134

higher agricultural vocational colleges, which are located across the country.

Table 4: Number of vocational colleges and schools in China

Type Number

Government Higher vocational colleges 1,327

Total number of secondary vocational education schools 11,878

Including: common technical secondary schools 3,536

Adult technical secondary schools 1,457

Vocational high schools 4,067

Technical schools 2,818

Other vocational institutions (excluding schools) (402)

Non-public Private colleges 307

Private secondary vocational education 2,343

Private training institutions (excluding schools) (20,001)

Source: PRC 2014

The name list of agricultural vocational schools is unavailable. It can be assumed that a huge number

of agricultural vocational schools exist and most cities do have agricultural schools or at least

vocational middle schools that have agriculture-related curricula. In the secondary vocational

education system, only 3.47% of the teachers teach in Agriculture (table 5).

Table 5: Number of full-time teachers of secondary vocational schools

Total Senior Sub-senior

Intermediate Junior Undetermined rank

Total 663,782 3,179 158,175 266,321 176,856 59,251

Agriculture, forestry, animal

husbandry and fishery

23,022 184 6,450 9,714 5,384 1,290

% 3.47% 5.79% 4.08% 3.65% 3.04% 2.18%

Source: PRC 2015

Some agricultural vocational and technical colleges provide full-time education, and also organize

the training of farmers. Some colleges have set up a special training for farmers, such as the

Wenzhou College of Science and Technology which was established in 2012. In 2013 the College

held already 110 training courses with 10.645 trainees (table 6).



Table 6: Farmers’ training at Wenzhou College of Science & Technology

Year Number of Trainings Trainees

2013 110 10,645

2014 148 11,281

2015 (Jan. - Aug.) 96 8,583

The Agricultural Broadcasting and Television School System offers distant education and trainings

in various forms. There are now a total of 2,577 of such schools across the country. These schools

produce agricultural radio and television programs and hold their trainings through TV, Internet and

other media. The Central Agricultural Broadcasting and Television School has organized 939

programs in 1,414 series, more than 1,890 TV programs of 930 hours, and organized the

compilation and publication of 310 written teaching materials. Local agricultural broadcasting and

television schools at various levels have developed regional rural media resources, produced

broadcasting programs of 65,000 hours, TV programs of 5,700 hours and 51,000 computer

courseware, and organized compilation and printing of 63,000 types of teaching and training

materials. An example is Beijing Agricultural Broadcasting and Television School which is

subordinated to the Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture. It has 12 branches, 120 workstations

and 3,000 teaching points, basically achieving full coverage of the rural areas.

Vocational trainings provided by the agricultural broadcasting and television schools provide three

categories of training: academic education, distance education and short-term training. At present,

the school carries out the "One Million Secondary School Students Program". Different from

vocational education colleges and secondary vocational schools which mainly recruit fresh junior and

senior high school graduates, this program is designed for professional farmers with junior middle

school (or equivalent to junior middle school) educational level. These students are already working:

in agricultural production, management, service and rural economic and social development, as

village cadres (village team), professional farmers, farmers’ cooperative organizations’ backbone

members, rural brokers, managers of distance education stations, demobilized soldiers and rural

fresh junior and senior high school graduates, etc. Agricultural broadcasting and television schools

are now quite important institutions for agricultural training, green certificate training, farmers'

entrepreneurship training and the “sunshine project”.

Some agricultural enterprises also hold training courses for farmers. They mainly have three training

objectives (Jiang Changyun 2005):

Strengthen the training of migrant workers of the enterprises;

Guide farmers to achieve standardized agricultural production;

Strengthen farmers’ training and technology promotion in agricultural production bases

taking into consideration the quality and stable supply of raw materials.

Farmers' training provided by enterprises is aiming to safeguard the enterprises’ interests and

increase their profits (Zhang and Xu 2009). From the perspective of training content, the trainings of

agriculture-related enterprises should meet the needs of the business operation. Enterprises

accepting migrant workers organize a certain number of migrant workers’ trainings, and the



enterprises in cooperation with farmers in business operation or sales carry out agricultural

technology promotion and knowledge extension training.

Non-profit organizations that provide agricultural training services are for example professional

technical associations of farmers, agricultural products industry associations, farmers' professional

cooperative organizations, etc. which provide trainings for their employees. They either organize the

trainings by themselves or cooperate with external entities, for example with enterprises, universities,

and research institutes.

2.2.2.3 Full-time academic education for junior and senior high school graduates

Education for junior and senior high school graduates educates technicians and management talents

for agricultural development. Most students tend to work later-on in agricultural enterprises,

agriculture-supporting industries and the local agricultural management sector. As an example, from

Pingdu Vocational Technical School in 2014 of a total of 7,800 graduates 18 chose to stay in the

school and finally became practice tutors; more than 1,200 graduates launched their own businesses

after graduation and became professionals in planting, breeding and agricultural processing in local

and surrounding areas; more than 4,500 graduates were hired by employers and a large number

of them became the technical backbone of the enterprises.

The students of vocational schools are mainly junior and senior middle school graduates. Fieldwork

shows that most of the students enrolled in agricultural vocational colleges and/or majoring in

agriculture-related curricula come from rural areas. The proportion of students majoring in

agriculture is low, with less than 8% in the secondary level and less than 2% in higher vocational

education.

All secondary and higher vocational colleges with agriculture-related majors provide free education.

They offer a living subsidy of about 3,000 yuan per year on average to the students. For students

from poor families, other support is provided so that more junior and senior middle school graduates

can choose to major in agriculture. In order to encourage students to choose agricultural vocational

institutions, students who graduate from agricultural vocational college are allowed to take part in

the college entrance examination or undergraduate examination to enter the general higher

education system. In Qingdao Pingdu Vocational Technical School, for example, about 15%-20% of

the students take part in the college entrance examination every year.



Table 7: Number of students in different types of vocational schools in China in 2014

Graduates in 2014

Students Enrolled in 2014

Current students

Higher

vocational

education

Ordinary majors Total 3,179,884 3,379,835 10,066,346



55,541 55,299 170,247

% 1.75% 1.64% 1.69%

Adult majors Total 1,313,279 1,553,631 3,733,295



23,175 30,026 66,113

% 1.76% 1.93% 1.77%

Network majors Total 1,075,034 1,280,407 4,027,462



57,479 47,563 198,903

% 5.35% 3.71% 4.94%

Secondary vocational education Total 5,161,519 4,953,553 14,163,127



643,914 394,930 1,323,974

% 12.48% 7.97% 9.35%

Source: MoE 2015

With the rapid growth of agricultural enterprises and cooperative agricultural organizations (about

1.14 million in 2014), there is an increasing demand for agricultural technical workers and managers

who both need to be further qualified. For an example: in order to supply cauliflower with a unified

standard, farmers can’t plant cauliflower as they did in past; they need to be trained. In order to

manage a cooperative organization of cauliflower with 1,500 ha of land, the administrative staff

should understand how to access markets, control quality and cost. Thus, they also need special

training.

Despite this demand for qualification, it has been revealed during field work that agricultural

vocational institutions still face great difficulties in recruiting students. One reason might be that full-

time agricultural vocational education for junior and senior high school graduates is implemented as

a very theoretical transfer of academic knowledge.

2.2.2.4 Part-time education for the new agricultural business entities

New agricultural business entities are production-oriented farmers, “skilled farmers” and “service-

professionals”. They create their main income from agriculture, thus it must reach a certain level.

Production-oriented farmers are the backbone members of major breeding / planting households,

family farms and farmers' cooperatives. “Skilled farmers” include agricultural laborers who serve

agricultural enterprises, farmers' cooperatives, family farms and other new types of agricultural

businesses. Service-professionals are engaged in the pre-production and post-production sectors,



such as agricultural machinery service staff, plant protection personnel for unified control of plant

pests, village-level animal epidemic prevention workers, rural information workers, rural brokers,

land arbitration mediators, soil testing and formula fertilization workers and other agricultural

socialized service personnel. All these jobs demand professional skills.

Table 8: Class-hour requirement for the secondary vocational education curricula of new type of

professional farmers

Curriculum requirements Class hour requirement

Ratio between theoretical teaching and practical teaching hours

Public basic

courses

3~4 courses No less than 320 class

hours

1:1

Core specialized

courses

4 basic courses and some

core courses

No less than 1040

class hours

（1:1）~（1:2）

Capability

building courses

Optional courses for other

majors

Total class hours as

required

（1:1）~（1:2）

Total No less than 2,720

class hours

Note The total class hours should be no less than 2,720 for graduation and the ratio between theoretical

teaching and practical teaching hours should be (1:1) ~ (1:2) on the whole.

In order to improve their competencies, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture offer

them part-time education at vocational colleges and agricultural broadcasting schools. The students

are mainly farmers and new rural labors under 50 years of age with an educational level of junior

middle school (or its equivalent) and above. At present, Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and

Technology has enrolled 168 farmer students for such education.

In the curriculum design, more attention is paid to the cultivation of practical ability. Thus, agricultural

vocational colleges need to design innovative curricula taking into account the flexible learning time

and diverse demands of farmer students. Wenzhou College, for example, implements a “curriculum

supermarket”, providing 90 curricula for students to choose. In addition to two public required

courses and 4 core specialized courses, the students may select 16-18 courses according to their own

cultural base, hobbies and interests as well as actual needs. In addition, Wenzhou Vocational

College of Science and Technology allows the students to attend lectures of the full-time higher

vocational courses and take part in other training courses held by the college. The longest term is

about two years and five months.

A credit system is implemented for such education. Students will graduate as they get 85 credits.

Whenever they have finished all credits required they can get a degree. The local government

offers financial resource to farmers; therefore the training is free of charge for them.

2.2.2.5 Certified training for agricultural technical personnel

Professional and technical qualification certificates are required for many industries. Often

employees need to proof their (theoretical) knowledge in a certain field. Thus, one field of training is

so-called textual research. Wenzhou College for example is offering a number of respective courses

(table 9). The trainings have two terms which last from two weeks to seven months.



Some colleges organize both, theoretical study and practical training to help their students to get the

relevant certificates. They also promote their students’ employment, which enhances the enthusiasm of

the students to attend the trainings.

The trainees need to pay for this kind of training in order to obtain the certificate. The overall cost

and/or expenditure is about 500 to 6,000 yuan.

Table 9: “Certified” training courses of Wenzhou College of Science and Technology

Type Item Type Item

Planting Seed breeder (primary,

intermediate, senior, technician)

Gardening Afforestation worker (primary,


Crop protection officer

(intermediate, senior)

forest worker (primary,

intermediate, senior)

Agricultural workers (primary,


Florist (Intermediate, senior), senior)

Vegetable gardening workers

(primary, intermediate, senior)

Flower gardening workers

(Intermediate)

Food Food inspection worker (primary,


Flower gardening worker (senior)

National public dietitian (Class III &

IV)

Bonsai workers (plant potted

landscape) (Intermediate, senior)

ISO22000/HACCP internal auditor


Cultivation worker (Camellia

cultivation and maintenance)

(Intermediate, senior)

Food safety intendant (primary,


Fruit tree planter (Intermediate,

senior)

Animal husbandry Animal quarantine inspector (senior) Tea art specialist (Intermediate,

senior)

Animal epidemic prevention officer

(senior)

Landscape architect (senior)

Livestock and poultry breeding

worker (Intermediate, senior)

Information and

Electronic

Engineering

Rural information officer (junior)

Livestock and poultry breeding

worker(Intermediate, senior)

Rural information officer

(Intermediate)

Pet Grooming Training Course

(National class C)

Rural information officer (senior)

Economy and

trade

Agricultural product broker


Others Ou dish-oriented chef training (I, II)

2.2.2.6 Practical short-term technical training for new type of agricultural business entities

There is a huge number of trainings which end without certifications as mentioned in figure 3. These

are offered by all providers, on different topics and of different durations. Those offered by public

organizations usually are free of charge.

Some vocational colleges have changed the traditional training program in a way that they do not

hold the training until the number of participants reaches a certain level. Through a field survey,

written questionnaires, and a public micro channel questionnaire, Wenzhou Vocational College of

Science and Technology strives to understand farmers’ production situation and problems they

encountered as well as their training needs. Based on the information collected, the college



encourages teachers to develop new training programs, sorted out its existing training courses and

launched the training programs into a menu covering more than 200 practical trainings (Table 10).

This menu was printed and issued to the farmers to facilitate their selection.

Table 10: Short-term farmers training projects of Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and

Technology (selection)

Agricultural production and processing technology

Agricultural product safety knowledge training course

Facility agricultural production technical training course

Grape cultivation technique training courses

Kiwi fruit cultivation technique training courses

Dragon fruit cultivation technique training course

Red bayberry cultivation and management skills training course

Tea cultivation and management skills training course

Training course for grafting of fruit trees

New tomato varieties and new technical training course

Amphisarca cultivation training class

Mandarin orange cultivation technology training

Blueberry production technology training course

Chicken breeding technical training

Duck breeding technical training

Pig breeding technical training

Animal epidemic prevention knowledge and skills training

Training course for animal disease detection technology

Agricultural product packing and freshness retaining technical training

Baking processing technical training

Aquatic product processing technical training

Meat product processing technical training

Agricultural enterprise management

Agricultural product brand construction training

Management training course for professional agricultural cooperatives

Standardized base construction, quality certification training course

Application training course for bases' intelligent agricultural management

Family farmer training course

Agricultural professional managers training course

Elite training on agricultural entrepreneurship by science and technology for rural youth to get rich

Agricultural entrepreneurship

Farmer entrepreneurship training course

Urban agriculture (farm) training courses

Training course for new rural leisure project development

Farmhouse and hostel management training

Internet entrepreneurship training



2.2.3 The main features of VET in China

Integration of scientific research with teaching, training and services

Most of the agricultural vocational education and training institutions in China integrate scientific

research with teaching and training. Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology, for

example, has a complete system of agricultural scientific research and has established a dozen of

international, provincial and municipal research platforms including the national rice seed breeding

base. In the field of social science research, the college has set up Zhejiang Modern Agriculture

Research Base for SMEs. In addition, it has established 14 research institutes including the Research

Institute of Pomology and the Vegetables Research Institute. New results have been achieved in the

selection and breeding of varieties. It has set up 14 science and technology innovation teams for

breeding of hybrid rice of which eight teams have participated in the provincial major project of

new variety breeding. In recent years, the college has independently selected 15 national or

provincial new varieties of rice, corn, tomato, and introduced a dozen of new crops such as

blueberry. In the past three years, 42 ministerial / provincial research projects, including three

national projects were approved and the external research fund amounted to more than 35 million

yuan. In 2014, the research fund exceeded 13 million yuan. Wenzhou Vocational College of Science

and Technology is ranked first in total research fund in the provincial higher vocational colleges for

several consecutive years and has won two second prizes and one third prize of science and

technology.

It is a major feature of many agricultural vocational training institutions in China to provide follow-up

services and support for the trainees. Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology, for

example, provides its students with free venue and offers online and offline sales service for the

students’ farm production, and supports three trainees’ enterprises. The college also sends teaching

groups to provide guidance free of charge and arrange junior students to provide assistance for

their online services. At present, agricultural products of more than 60 college enterprises have been

marketed via the platform. In the past six months, the sales revenue amounted to 3 million yuan.

Linking theoretical and practical education

Most farmers' vocational education and training institutes have their own training bases or off-

campus bases, combining teaching of theory with agricultural practice. Starting from 2004, the

Ministry of Education supports a number of training bases every year. Since 2007, a total of 3,675

training bases have been constructed, including 296 agriculture-related training bases, accounting

for 8.05% of the total. Pingdu Vocational Technical School, for example, has "three fields and four

centers": Fields of experimental teaching are cow breeding, boar breeding and planting; centers

focus on training in processing of fruit, meat, dairy and “western style pastry”. Learning from

Germany’s "Dual System" for vocational education, Pingdu Vocational Technical School combines

theoretical study with practice and training. Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology

has 99 training centers at campus and 178 off-campus practice bases for students’ practice

activities.



Table 11: Approved projects of demonstration vocational education and training bases across the

country

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Total 313 320 320 640 700 750 632

Agriculture-related projects 21 25 22 39 64 71 54

Proportion 6.71% 7.81% 6.88% 6.09% 9.14% 9.47% 8.54%

Relationship with agricultural enterprises

Many vocational education and training institutions work closely together with agricultural

enterprises. The enterprises mainly provide trainees with venues for internships, short visits and

surveys. There is no standard how the relations are established, but usually the schools start an

initiative. Wenzhou College for example identifies cooperative enterprises for its training

demonstration bases through business screening. After screening more than 280 qualified agricultural

enterprises in the city, Wenzhou Farmers College selected over 50 outstanding enterprises for field

survey and research and finally decided to cooperate with 11 enterprises. Selection conditions for

the enterprises to cooperate are:

the enterprises’ principals must come from the academic education class of the college or the

training class for rural youth elites, have got rich by starting a business or are leaders in

agricultural development;

a certain scale of business;

the enterprises must play a demonstration role;

convenient traffic;

complete materials provided by the base.

The college issues a certain amount of funds for the training base, but the base is mainly designed

for visits of the college students and the practice of a small number of trainees.

Pingdu Vocational Technical School, in contrast, mainly introduces enterprises to launch factories at

campus and the school provides the producing area for the enterprises. Students can practice in the

factories at any time, combining the theoretical study with practical operation. At present, Pingdu

Vocational Technical School has cooperated with nearly 20 enterprises.

Financing

Training funds are mainly government funds. Wenzhou Farmers College has two main funding

sources (see table 12): One million yuan of special funds are received from the municipal

government every year; furthermore, the college arranges 1.7 million yuan of annual budget for

farmers’ training (amongst others). In addition, the provincial agricultural office issued special funds

of 2.4 million yuan in 2015 for the farmers’ training of the college as encouragement for its

achievements made in recent years. The college also cooperates with the city association for science

and technology and the relevant county (city, district) government departments and gets some

financial aid through providing training services. In 2014, for example, the municipal bureau of

science and technology allocated 200,000 yuan for the college to hold trainings of young farmers.



Table 12: Funding of Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology

In addition, governments at all levels arrange a certain proportion of the annual budget for the

college’s construction, education and training. 60% of the tuition fee of rural practical talent and

new farmers’ degree courses in the three districts in 2012, for example, came from the city

government, 30% from the district government and 10% from individuals. 40% of the tuition fee of

rural practical talent and new farmers’ degree courses in the six counties came from the city

government, 50% from the county government and 10% from individuals. For Yueqing and Ruian,

the city government issued 20% of the tuition fee, local government issued 70% and the remaining

10% came from individuals.

Accommodation fees of the students of Wenzhou College are fully provided by the city government.

The city government has set up a scholarship – 20% of the tuition fee – to reward high academic

achievers combining what they learned with practice. Meanwhile, the city government provides

subsidies in full for municipal short-term training of practical talents for rural areas.

2.3 Comparison of the German and the Chinese Systems

Table 13 compares relevant framework conditions for Agricultural VET in China and Germany.

Concerning the farm structure, there are still huge differences. In Germany, the medium family farms

(50 ha on average) dominate in the Western federal states and larger companies in the five Eastern

states. In China, market oriented production is in the hand of large farm companies and

cooperatives. On the other hand, as still about half of the population lives in rural areas, there is a

huge amount of smallholdings which still produce for local markets and for subsistence. Only recently,

with increasing urbanization and a beginning concentration process, family farms are growing, and a

new type of farmer - the “new family famer” - evolves. For the VET system this is a challenge: On the

one hand it must train smallholders, a situation which might be comparable with Germany’s

Agriculture in the 1950s to 60s. On the other hand there are large “professional” farms whose staff

in principle needs to receive the same education than in Germany today.

It can be assumed that in both countries farm structure will further change in the future, in China

maybe more rapidly and more fundamentally than in Germany. In Germany, family farms will still

grow in size and more part time farms will go out of business. In China there will be a great

structural change in agriculture which is even faster and more fundamental than in Germany. As the

children of farmers are better educated and may find jobs outside agriculture, many of the now

dominating small farms will be given up – maybe after a phase of turning them into part-time farms.

The remaining farms will become bigger or more specialized, turning into family farms which are

more oriented towards market-oriented production, with a higher use of modern farm technology.

Donor Financial inputs

Provincial government 2.4 million yuan in 2015

City government One million yuan per year

200,000 yuan from municipal bureau of science and technology in 2014

School funding 1.7 million yuan per year



The Chinese government obviously counts on cooperative farming and larger, professionally

managed units, too (MoE 2014).

It seems as if in both countries farm work is quite unattractive for the young due to high work load,

low salaries, and a low image of agriculture particularly in China. In Germany, despite a high

reputation of farmers in society, the demand for apprenticeships as a farmer currently is lower than

the offer, and agriculture faces a deficit in qualified farmers in future. Insofar it is a challenge in

both countries to attract young people for agriculture.

Table 13: Comparison of framework conditions for VET in agriculture

Topic Germany China

Farm structure medium family farms + large

companies

smallholdings + large farms

Future larger family farms small to medium family farms,

cooperatives, large private and

state-farms

Future fields of competence market oriented, good farming

practice, sustainable agriculture,

management, leadership/ human

resources

large farms, New family farms:

ditto;

small farms: basic farming

competencies

Image of farmers relatively high low

Image of farm jobs low low

Challenges attract young people for the Green sector

The key competencies of future farmers and farm workers could be summarized as “profession-

related action-competences”. For the Chinese medium and larger farms this seems to be similar to

Germany. Additionally, there is urgent need to further qualify smaller farmers in very basic issues of

a market-oriented agriculture, as well as basic techniques in pest and disease management.



Table 14: Comparison of the VET systems in Germany and China

Topic Germany China

VE in general Profession-related

Basic education leading to state-approved

professions

Advanced education leading to Master-

farmers & specialists’

Trainings build upon basic VE

Job / Industry-oriented

School-based education (not for smallholder

farmers) and Trainings

Trainings

Target groups for VET Young farmers

Young persons mainly (<25 basic, <35

advanced)

“Thousands”

Administration, teachers, trainers, extension

staff; “Young farmer training”

Young and middle-aged persons (<55)

“Millions”

Basic VE formalized, long-term, combined farm +

school + inter-company training, practical +

theoretical

only schools, internships, very theoretical, more

practice demanded

V-Schools operated

and financed by

Federal states and counties Central and local governments

Training providers Official extension

Inter-company training units

Private (e.g. DLG academy)

MoA and subordinate institutions, extension,

agro-industry

Objectives Develop individual competencies Transfer of factual knowledge

Challenges Integration of key competencies in Dual

System; Practice-training in university e.g. by

Dual Studies

Strengthen basic VE, more practice-oriented

training

Curriculum

development

Coordinated by one institution (BIBB)

Systematic, formalized procedure

Board: MoE (states), MoA, workers’ union,

farmers’ association

MoE will offer a list of courses and vocational

schools can develop their courses based on the

list

Coordination of basic

education

„Responsible Institutions“ for each profession

(ministry department or chamber of

agriculture) at state level,

Education contracts

MoE: Degrees / general educational

requirements

MoA: Contents from agricultural perspective

Council of agricultural VET at the Department

of Science and Technology of MoA, supervised

by MoE (newly established).

Table 14 compares the Vocational Education and Training systems of both countries, whereas in

Table 15 the programs and degrees are compared. Vocational education in Germany is generally

profession-related and structured; basic and advanced vocational education are highly formalized.

The majority of young persons from the age of 16 coming from General and Middle school are

educated for three years (on average) in one of the more than 300 state-approved jobs of the Dual

System. Many high school graduates, too, choose such an apprenticeship before (possibly) going to



university - which shows the high acceptance and reputation of the professions. After a minimum of

two years of practical work many professionals go for advanced training at vocational schools

where they are trained to be Masters of their profession and thereby also acquire the qualification

to be a practical trainer in the respective profession. Furthermore, a huge number of short-term

training courses are offered for life-long learning. They typically built on basic vocational education

but are open for “untrained”, too.

Table 15: Comparison of programs and degrees in vocational education

Germany China

Duration Program Degree Program Degree

Basic VE 3 years –

apprenticeship in Dual

System (in-company,

vocational schools, inter-

company trainings)

Certificate of state-

approved profession

3 years of junior school

& senior high school

High school diploma

Advanced

VE

1 – 2 years - Master,

Technician, Agro-

specialist

Master / Technician

certificate

3 years of vocational

college

Associate degree

Trainings Short-term Certificate Short-term to 1 year

internships / trainings

Non or Certificate

(exceptional)

Higher

education

6 months – 1 year

internship

(if no voc. education)

(examination

possible after 1

year)

Internships optional -

3 years for Bachelor

BSc 4 years for Bachelor BSc

2 years for Master

MSc / MEd 2 years for Master MSc

>3 years research PhD 3-5 years research +

studies

PhD

In China, vocational education is much more focused on the actual or future job within a certain

industry. Vocational education is very much school-based, and the overall role of trainings is much

more important than in Germany. However, the system now is in a transformation phase, and the role

of basic vocational education will be strengthened (PRC 2014). One of the most important

approaches in our opinion is the New Professional Farmers Program which currently is in a trial phase.

This program is jointly coordinated by MoA and MoE. For this purpose they have established a

coordination unit, the council of agricultural VET. The council is settled at the Department of Science

and Technology of MoA, and operates under supervision of MoE. It shall facilitate VET affairs.

Members are from local agricultural administration, VET colleges and schools, and enterprises. It is

not yet visible in how far the program and the coordination unit already are in effect. As it maybe is

the first program to professionalize farmers, we assume that there is a potential for further learning

from Germany, particularly among program managers.

One reason is the great number (“millions”) of smallholders and returning migrant workers in China to

be qualified in agriculture. The German system focuses mainly on qualification of youth under 25

years at the basic level and under approximately 35 years for the Master-of-Profession, and it



later-on supports life-long learning by offering trainings. In contrast, important target groups of the

Chinese VET system in agricultural production are middle-aged persons who actually have an income

and thus are reluctant to engage in long-term education. Where the German vocational education

trains professionals in the whole agricultural sector within the Dual System, the Chinese system locates

vocational education mainly in vocational schools and colleges, and predominantly qualifies

administrative staff, teachers, trainers and extension staff rather than farmers - in other words: the

education system is oriented towards training of trainers. However, there are strong efforts to

strengthen basic vocational education of farmers, too, as the qualification measures for the “new

family farmer” show.

The most important difference between the two systems is that the German system institutionalizes

practical education and training elements much more within the whole VET system. This is the case in

the whole Dual System, which in fact is dominated by practical learning in a real working

environment. It also shows in higher education where, for example, an initial internship can be a

precondition for university studies. However, even in Germany the demand for improvement of

practical training in higher education is high, the more with increasing numbers of young people

applying for university education. At the moment, opportunities for combining university with in-

company education are discussed intensively. Such a combination is done in the form of Dual Studies,

for example.

And, last but not least, there are differences in the coordination within the whole VET systems. In

China, the system is centrally governed: vocational school education is under the Ministry of

Education, and trainings are under the Ministry of Agriculture. Germany has well-established

mechanisms of coordination, whereby basic vocational education is coordinated de-centrally by the

Responsible Institutions, and professional vocational education is coordinated by regulation of

professions, framework curricula for school and in-company education, as well as with the help of an

institute which is responsible for need assessment through vocation-related research. All relevant

societal partners are involved in the process of structuring and re-structuring state-approved

professions in general, and particularly in the Green sector.


38 Field research in China


3.1 Problems of Current Agricultural Vocational Training in China

Poor image of agriculture

There still is some reluctance against agricultural vocational education and the proportion of farmers

participating in systematic training is still relatively low. Other problems are: low educational level of

students, difficulties in student recruitment, graduates’ low willingness to work in agriculture, etc. It is

therefore difficult for agricultural vocational colleges / schools to enrol students. A rather low

proportion of the graduates of agricultural vocational education schools / colleges work in

agriculture after graduation and a large number of the graduates tend to choose other sectors.

Agricultural vocational education can hardly boost agricultural development effectively, resulting in

the waste of educational resources.

There are several reasons for these problems. On the one hand, agriculture seems to have a low

comparative benefit and does not attract people. Many experts stated this. There is little information

available on the present and future job market for agricultural professionals, the balance between

jobs in the sector and graduates, core future competencies etc. On the other hand, agricultural

vocational education is a public welfare product and the system is imperfect. Education is not well

integrated with industries and does not cover recent needs. The education level of farmers in China is

generally low. According to the sample survey of the Ministry of Agriculture, Chinese farmers have

been to school for only 7.3 years on average. 70% of the farmers only have primary or junior

middle school education. Only 3.7% of farmers have received training for more than one year, but

75% of the farmers are willing to receive agricultural vocational education. Many new farmers wish

to become decent professional farmers through receiving vocational education.

Scattered training measures

At present, there is no consistent and effective training system in China, which has a great impact on

the effect of training programs. Too many management organizations are involved and resources

are wasted: The farmers' vocational training in China is dominated by the government and many

different departments carry out farmers’ training projects. For example, the Rain Plan of the LGOP,

the new farmers’ technology training program under the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture and

the Ministry of Finance, and the modern youth farmer program led by the Ministry of Agriculture, the

Ministry of Education and the Communist Youth League are under the management and supervision

of different departments or leading groups. In local farmers' vocational training, an overlap of a

number of projects is quite common, and many departments are sometimes responsible for the same

project. In this case, the farmers' vocational education and training lacks a unified management and

overall planning, easily leading to a waste of resources in the process of resource allocation.

Too many local organizations provide short-term agricultural technical training with weak teaching

force. In Pingdu City, for example, there are 11 designated vocational training institutions (Table

16). Usually vocational schools (or vocational education centres, technical schools) are responsible for

education, while vocational schools and other various training institutions hold short-term trainings.

Pingdu Technical School undertakes part of the task of academic education, and other training

schools mainly hold medium- or short-term trainings. Many schools are small and have few teachers,



mainly part-time employees, so they obviously have rather weak teaching force. A low training

quality affects farmers’ enthusiasm for training.

Companies, in contrast, do not enough engage in education even if they strongly demand skilled

personnel. But: “Vocational education is seen as task of the government only” (Expert).

Table 16: Teaching force of the designated vocational training institutions in Pingdu City

School Type Teachers (number)

Pingdu Technical School Public 156 (school teachers)

Pingdu Chengguan Cultural and Technical School Public 8 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Tonghe Workers' Secondary Vocational School Public 8 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Mingcun Cultural and Technical School Public 8 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Runlin Vocational Training School Private 52 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Qingdao Zhixing Vocational Training School Private 16 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Good Sister Vocational Training School Private 6 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Mingbo Vocational Training School Private 8 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Yijia Vocational Training School Private 6 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Xingguang Vocational Training School Private 8 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Pingdu Hongde Education and Vocational Training School Private 6 (full-time and part-time teachers)

Low flexibility in curriculum design

According to the "Opinions on the Principles for Teaching Plan Formulation of Secondary Vocational

Schools" issued by the Ministry of Education in 2009, secondary vocational education is a part of

high school education. Its curriculum setting shall cover public basic courses and professional skills

courses. The curriculum design is stereotype, and it is difficult to independently design courses or

make dynamic adjustment to the courses based on local agricultural and farmers’ situation. The

setting of courses in academic education in general is formulated by the state and limited by the list

of majors developed by the Ministry of Education - they include subjects such as moral education,

culture, sports and health, art. Local education departments have more detailed provisions on

curriculum setting of secondary vocational education. Jiangsu Province, for example, has clear

provisions on the curriculum setting and teaching materials of public basic courses and core

professional courses of secondary vocational education.

Shortcomings in practical education

All interview partners stated that education is too theoretical. Influenced by the traditional education

system, vocational education continues to be dominated by theoretical studies and has few class

hours for practice. In Pingdu Vocational Education Center, for example, student courses are: basic

courses, basic specialized courses and specialized courses, experiment and training courses, and

practice courses (table 17). Basic courses include moral, Chinese language, mathematics, computer,

English and sports. Basic specialized courses and specialized courses focus on theoretical study, and



the practice courses include experimental courses and professional practice courses. Among these

courses, practical courses account for only 39%~45% and their credits account for less than 50% of

the total. Many interviewees highlighted that agricultural vocational education puts too much

emphasis on knowledge accumulation rather than enables students to apply their knowledge in

practice. In curriculum development of agricultural vocational education, therefore, more emphasis

should be laid on learning-by-doing and on building operational capacity.

Table 17: Class hours and proportions of majors at Pingdu Vocational Education Center

Major Basic courses

specialized courses

Experiment and practice

Total

Fruit, vegetable and flower production

technology

702

28.68%

648

26.47%

1,098

44.85%

2,448

100.00%

Dual system of animal husbandry and

veterinary medicine

702

27.86%

684

27.14%

1134

45.00%

2520

100.00%

Rural electrical technology 840

30.00%

760

27.14%

1,200

42.86%

2,800

100.00%

Agricultural insurance and processing of

agricultural products

702

28.26%

810

32.61%

972

39.13%

2,484

100.00%

Agricultural vocational education should support the development of students' practical skills. This is

supported if the teachers in agricultural vocational education have strong skills themselves and rich

practical experience. But much training even in vocational schools is realized via short-term training

by staff who themselves have little practical experience. In vocational training institutions, the

teachers with rich practice experience and strong ability are usually senior teachers, who had the

experience of working in the countryside when they were young, and are experienced in farming.

Young teachers hired by the training institutions in recent years, however, usually do not have

experience in practical operation. Most of them are college graduates, who began to work as

teachers directly after passing the employment assessment of the training agency, lacking farming

experience. These young teachers have rich theoretical knowledge and a wide vision and are good

at theory courses, but they do not have the ability to solve field problems and cannot help their

students enhance practical skills. As a result, the farmers receiving the trainings are not satisfied and

these teachers without farming experience can hardly make effective interactions with the farmers.

Low orientation towards learning capabilities of farmers

Agricultural vocational education is dominated by the government. Training funds are mainly

provided by the public and farmers often do not need to pay for training projects. Therefore,

farmers' vocational training is, to some extent, a kind of public welfare. This restricts the

development of non-public paid trainings. Private vocational education colleges and schools,

agriculture-related enterprises and non-profit organizations also receive government subsidies for

vocational training after applying for government projects but private education in China does not

develop well and insufficient social participation also has a certain impact on its weak development.



The government-led trainings are held under a top-down system and the training policies are usually

issued from higher authorities to lower authorities through policy directives. The implementation units

often are "forcing farmers to take part in training". Of course, in such a way, it is difficult to motivate

farmers to participate in trainings, and learning outcomes are insufficient.

Some training programs are organized by regional and local governments. The trainees have

different backgrounds and different capabilities for acquiring knowledge due to different

educational levels and different fields of work. With respect to the trainings, local governments - in

their efforts to complete the training task - usually ignore these variations in learning skills and

individual interests, holding many short-term training courses that cover a wide range of issues. If the

teacher carries out an in-depth analysis of an issue, many trainees cannot well understand or do not

care about it; if the teacher talks about too many details that are not guided by questions of

participants, he can hardly learn what the students are interested in at all, and fail to achieve a

good training effect. Questions and concerns of students remain unanswered.

3.2 Target Groups for Agricultural Vocational Training in China

It seems as if in the future the very small units might change towards smaller and medium-size family

farms; farmers either create their main income by farming and rent land from their neighbors or do

only part-time farming and have additional income by agribusiness. Meanwhile there will be many

large farms, either as companies, state farms or as cooperatives of smaller farms. The resulting need

to urgently reform the Chinese VET system is well-known.

According to the interviews, the main target groups for agricultural VET in China are:

Farmers: The goal of independency in food production has a high priority, and it is certainly

related to food security issues. This can only be achieved by well-educated farmers.

Smallholder farmers still obtain agricultural production skills mainly from their parents,

neighbors, and short-term training and extension service. The future target group for AVT will

most likely be returning migrant workers who would start to find new business opportunities in

the agricultural sector; large households with more land or more livestock, family farm

operators who manage large-scale farms;

Agribusiness: Due to changes of industry structure, capital began to flow to agriculture. New

investors lack knowledge and skills in agricultural technology; therefore it is necessary to

offer agricultural vocational training to them. On the other hand more and more students

graduating from university now are promoted to work in rural areas and the agricultural

sector. They also need to have competencies in agriculture-related businesses;

Managers of agricultural companies and cooperative farms: They are an important target

group with respect to agricultural development. At present, their competence often does not

match the need to promote their business;

Extension workers & trainers: In China the local extension system is (and will be in the medium

term) very important to transfer new technologies and to organize short-term trainings for

local farmers which obviously still will be a main instrument, particularly for smallholder

education and for training of middle-aged people. These groups should have competencies

in farming respectively agribusiness, as well as they should have some basic didactical skills.

That means, they can give practical examples based on own experiences, and implement

trainings in an encouraging way;



Existing agricultural vocational students: They are the main labor force to offer technology

services to agricultural development in China.

3.3 Competencies of farmers and teachers

German experts highlighted that vocational education is not oriented towards practical know-how of

the trainees. An example was given for mechatronics: most of trainees usually do know the parts of a

car very well, but this does not mean that they have ever changed an engine. Practical know-how is

often related to the ability to solve problems, in this case to be able to analyze car problems, find

solutions by themselves, implement the solution (=repair the car), control and evaluate the solution. In

the future, the trend of agricultural development in China is that production will be more market

oriented and therefore more specialized. However, there are very different ecological conditions to

be adhered to, and the demand of “safe” products in general and organically produced products

will rise in particular. Climate change and changing consumer behavior will call for changes in

production. So, the farmers need to obtain new competences, such as “good farming practice”,

certification, production planning, Integrated Pest Management, human resources management, et

cetera.

The competencies of workers on farms or in cooperatives are related to:

Agricultural production technologies: ability to handle machinery, using professional

techniques, solving main problems in production, storing and processing;

Marketing: identifying needs and thoughts of purchasers, awareness and knowledge of

agricultural brands, ability to valuate brand influence and culture, know-how to control

quality of products

Management (large farms, cooperatives & agro tourism). Key will be the ability to work

independently: They “do not ask for help, only when in need”. Other aspects mentioned are

knowledge of agricultural policies and relative laws, ability to operate modern enterprises,

to cooperate and communicate, have an international view of agricultural development, use

IT, cost control; comprehensive and fundamental agricultural knowledge

Process competencies for self-organized work: modern farmers also need to know how to

analyze situation, implement, control solutions.

In general, there is an urgent need to incorporate “practice” and practical skills into the vocational

education system. This is the case for the level of vocational schools but also for the training-of-

trainers in universities. Trainers also need to have practical experience, and competencies to teach

and to develop their lectures in a way that they support competencies mentioned above. What is

important is a combination of practice-oriented curriculums, teacher training, and cooperation with

companies; for example by a guided internship in companies. Interns must see the profession in all

aspects (expert).


43 Conclusions and Recommendations

3.4 Chinese Expectations towards Germany

Chinese stakeholders expressed high anticipations vis-à-vis the Sino-German cooperation in

agricultural vocational training. They appreciate the German vocational training system. Their

expectations towards Germany can be summarized as follows:

• Know more about German agriculture: Chinese stakeholders want to learn more about

small-scale agricultural machinery, organic agriculture, modern agricultural techniques,

experiences, management methods and products:

• Agricultural policies: They would like to know more about the German agricultural system

and the whole sector / value chain, about agricultural policies and subsidy policies in

particular, and about policies during urbanization and the transition phase.

• Farmer-training systems: Particularly the Dual system is of great interest and participants

would like to have deeper knowledge of education policies as well as arrangements of the

Dual System, the cooperation of farmer training and academic education, facts on vocational

education and its history in Germany;

• Methods: farmers' training principles are of interest as well as specific methods, the

compilation and development of teaching methods and materials; experiences with new

training methods and principles (participatory, visualization media, digital resources, E-

training);

• Curriculum & course development: Participants from vocational schools in particular would

like to learn more about course settings and processes and standards to assess training

qualities. They are interested in ways how to integrate ministries of education and agriculture

in order to better manage the system; they would like to implement joint education programs,

and to establish cooperation with existing projects and courses in China;

• Exchange: Offering more opportunities for exchange of experiences is seen as very

important. Chinese stakeholders suggest arranging vocational students to study and work in

international enterprises in order to get into contact and use German advanced facilities. It

was suggested to organize teachers and students to attend middle- or short-term further

education, and particularly to organize young farm operators to visit and study in Germany.


There is a great transformation going on in China’s agricultural sector, from a predominance of

smallholder farms into family farms and collective farming. As great numbers of people are still

moving from rural areas into cities, the next generation is better educated and living in rural areas is

not attractive to many. This trend might continue or even speed up. With farms growing in size the

competencies needed by farmers are changing fundamentally. The main challenges for the VET

system appear to be the following:

To safeguard acquisition of solid knowledge and skills in basic agronomic practice,

especially when it comes to environmentally friendly or conservation agriculture;

Technological changes which are needed to face demands arising from climate change or

increased market-orientation of production;



A growing demand for farm management, knowledge on agricultural policies, economic and

marketing skills – and eventually also pedagogic skills of practical farmers in training new

generations of farmers – in basic and in higher education.

The majority of smallholder farmers in China nowadays does not receive long-term basic agricultural

education and depends on local knowledge transfer (in family and communities) and on short-term

training through the extension systems. This does not suite the demand in the middle and long term.

The existing vocational education system seems to be very much oriented towards agro- food

industry and administration – family farmers and staff of large farms do not receive much education,

mainly short-term training. Managers of large farms are already trained in higher education.

Furthermore, education in general seems to be more theoretical. Vocational education for

administrative staff, teachers and trainers is school-based, governed by the Ministry of Education.

Education in general is highly theoretical, oriented on knowledge transfer, with few practical

elements. The main demand for change could be labelled as “more practice to the VET”.

The existing system (vocational schools, colleges, universities) could be adapted insofar as farmers

could receive basic and advanced agricultural education. However, what needs to be strengthened

is the practical training. For this to happen, an elite of practitioners needs to be able to train and

examine young farmers. Maybe the German Dual System is not a blueprint but could serve as a

source of inspiration. A demand is seen here to get a deeper understanding of and exchange in

both, administration of education and on the level of elite farmers (who might be future advisors for

young farmers).

In sum: Agriculture has a low image in China and, as a consequence, working in agriculture has, too.

The majority of small farmers did and does not receive basic vocational education. Vocational

education and training for farmers and in small agribusinesses is much training based, provided by

organizations governed by the Ministry of Agriculture. Vocational education in general seems too

theoretical and methodologically oriented at knowledge transfer rather than on self-organized

learning. In respect of systems’ governance, there is a lack of coordination mechanisms. Due to rapid

and dramatic structural changes, there is high pressure to reform the whole VET system.

Recommendations

Considering the role of DCZ as a communication platform on policy level, our recommendations with

respect to its objectives are:

Firstly, it is to further deepen situation analysis and to communicate there. All participants of DCZ

need more information and better understanding of the Chinese VET system. This includes a clear

picture of

the present and future job market for agricultural professionals,

governments’ (particularly MoA’s) assumptions on structural change,

consequences thereof for the VET System as well as of its governance, and

options for changes within the system, particularly in view of strengthening basic vocational

education and of incorporating more practice-oriented education and training.

Secondly, measures of coordination and support should be further focused, in our opinion on the

following topics:



A deeper understanding of both VET systems. All Chinese actors are very interested to learn

more about the German system. There seems to be a lot of information available on the

vocational education system in general. What is missing is an understanding of specific

conditions and procedures in the Agricultural VET, and how they are practically implemented;

Incorporation of more practice into VET: This seems to be needed in training of qualified

practitioners as well as in training of trainers. Although the German system faces similar

challenges (as industry complains about low levels of practical skills), the German system with

its linkage of practice to university education, with its Dual System and particularly with its

education for Master-of-Profession might be a model. It certainly cannot be a blueprint, but

might generate ideas for modification of the existing system;

Governance and Coordination mechanisms: This includes setting of learning objectives for

professional education by defining key competencies (for example in framework curricula),

incorporation of expertise from MoA, MoE and industry, furthermore the coordination of

curriculum development, and the coordination of concrete education, as in Germany done by

the Responsible Institution. Much interest in this issue has been expressed during interviews and

the final workshops;

Modern practice-oriented training methods, supporting the development of key competencies

to act professionally and self-dependent in different work environments.

Recommendations: Measures

We suggest implementing the following activities:

1. Publication (at least internally) of basic information on the VET Systems (details on

agriculture, institutions, processes, methods etc.), for example in form of a booklet or

brochure. It would be very helpful for all actors to have at least a basic overview, which also

could be used to communicate with other experts in this field.

2. In-depth studies on transformation of agricultural VET. This includes particularly for China

further knowledge on the structural changes in the agricultural sector, a clearer identification

of target groups for VET, an analysis of the labor market, and most importantly a clear

picture of competencies (skills and knowledge) needed in the whole sector. Regarding VET

policies, we see a need to build a mutual knowledge base concerning the state of decision-

making, i.e., what exactly has been decided already, what measures have so far been

implemented at various levels, and the role of various institutions, particularly the MoA as the

main partner in DCZ. We suggest

a. A study on structural change in the whole agricultural sector and the consequences

for the VET System and its governance;

b. A coordinated process of political communication in form of e.g. a workshop series

(policy dialogue) for experts on “options for changes within the System”. Topics could

be, for example, changes that have already been decided and started;

responsibilities, roles and tasks, priorities of MoA, MoE, local governments etc., options

of strengthening basic VE, practice-oriented education and training



3. A short term training measure in China for experts such as heads of vocational schools,

provincial level officials etc., on particular experiences in the German System and

experiences from existing Sino-German cooperation in VET

4. Organizing exchange of experts. We see particular need for an exchange of:

Decision-makers on topics such as objective-setting, coordination mechanisms, training

of trainers and examiners, examination organization;

Operational level officials (e.g. heads of vocational schools), on curriculum

development, modern methods, as well as experiences with practical training.

We suggest preparing such exchange in China with a discussion on existing experiences e.g.

in decentralized projects, the giz projects on VE in transportation sector, of agro-industry.

Activities in Germany could then include, among others, a guided excursion to the BIBB, to

Vocational schools, to organizations involved in curriculum development etc. According to

discussions in the workshops, the focus should be on practical experiences and good-

practices.

In order to broaden expert exchange, we also suggest to support a „cooperation platform“

(Kooperationsbörse). This suggestion is in fact an idea of stakeholders of the final workshops

which therefore might find their support and be established e.g. as an online portal. As a

starting point, information on ongoing exchanges could be easily published;

5. In the frame of the policy dialogue, DCZ should organize at least one event (for example a

conference) on Vocational Education. As this is one future topic in Chinese VET it is seen as

important to include in this event practical experiences of young family farmers from

exchanges in Germany (assuming that such exchanges are organized within decentralized

projects; if not, we recommend that DCZ organize such an exchange as a model);

6. The test and expert exchange on practice-oriented educational methods which enable

trainees to acquire profession-related know-how: DCZ may, firstly, subsume existing

experiences (in vocational schools, decentralized projects etc.) and organize expert

workshop(s) on “lessons learnt” and “consequences for VET”. This activity could then be

supplemented by own trials which, in turn, could be planned during the workshops.


47 Literature

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Ausschuss für Berufsbildung der Agrarwirtschaft (2005): Anforderungen an Jugendliche für den

Eintritt in eine Berufsausbildung im Bereich der Agrarwirtschaft: Kriterienkatalog des Ausschusses

für Berufsbildung der Agrarwirtschaft vom Februar 2005. Online:

http://www.landwirtschaftskammern.de/pdf/anforderungen.pdf

Bildungsserver agrar of BMEL: https://www.bildungsserveragrar.de

BMBF - Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (20015a): Reform of Vocational Education and

Training in Germany. The 2005 Vocational Training Act (Berufsbildungsgesetz 2005). Online:

https://www.bmbf.de/pub/The_2005_Vocational_Training_Act.pdf (19.12.2015).

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Online: https://www.bmbf.de/pub/Berufsbildungsbericht_2015.pdf (24.10.2015)

BMBF (2007): Dual Training at a Glance. Online:

http://helsinki.diplo.de/contentblob/1775196/Daten/131100/pdf_dualebildung.pdf

(9.10.2015); Ditto: http://www.na-bibb.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Glossare/Dual-

Training_at_a_glance_presentation.pdf

BMEL (2015): Statistisches Jahrbuch über Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten: Online:

http://www.bmelv-statistik.de/de/statistisches-jahrbuch/

BMEL: Ausgewählte Daten und Fakten der Agrarwirtschaft 2014: http://www.bmelv-

statistik.de/fileadmin/user_upload/monatsberichte/DFB-0010000-2014.pdf

Bundesarbeitskreis Berufliche Qualifizierung der Industriegewerkschaft Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (2014):

Duales (hybrides) Studium nicht ohne Qualitätskontrolle beginnen! Empfehlungen 4/2014. Online:

https://www.igbau.de/Binaries/Binary28025/Empfehlung_4-2014_des_BAK_BQ_-

_Duales_Studium.pdf

Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB) (2015): Bekanntmachung des Verzeichnisses der anerkannten

Ausbildungsberufe und des Verzeichnisses der zuständigen Stellen vom 19. Juni 2015. Bonn.

Online: http://www.bibb.de/dokumente/pdf/Verzeichnis_anerk_AB_2015.pdf (20.10.2015).

Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB) 2014: Training regulations and how they come about. Online:

http://www.bibb.de/veroeffentlichungen/en/publication/download/id/7324 (20.10.2015)

Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB) 2015: Ausbildungsordnungen und wie sie entstehen. In:

Informationen über das BIBB. Online:

http://www.bibb.de/veroeffentlichungen/de/publication/show/id/2061

DEKRA Akademie GmbH (2015): euVETsupport: Initial vocational education and training in

Germany. Online: http://www.euvetsupport.eu/index.php?id=190 (10.10.2015)

Deutscher Bauernverband: Situationsbericht 2014/15: TRENDS UND FAKTEN ZUR

LANDWIRTSCHAFT. Online: http://media.repro-mayr.de/43/623743.pdf

Eurostat: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/agriculture/data/main-tables

Flornet (2015): The German school system. Online: http://www.flornet.eu/fachschule-fuer-

blumenkunst-weihenstephan.html (10.10.2015)


48 Literature

Federal Republik of Germany (FRG) (2005): Vocational Training Act (Berufsbildungsgesetz – BBiG)

of 23 March 2005 (Federal Law Gazette [BGBl.], Part I, p. 931). Last amended by Article 22 of

the Act of 25 July 2013 (Federal Law Gazette Part I p. 2749).

FRG (2009): Ausbilder-Eignungsverordnung vom 21. Januar 2009 (BGBl. I S. 88). Online:

http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bundesrecht/ausbeignv_2009/gesamt.pdf (19.12.2015).

FRG (2010): Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz in der Fassung der Bekanntmachung vom 7.

Dezember 2010 (BGBl. I S. 1952; 2012 I S. 197). Online: http://www.gesetze-im-

internet.de/bundesrecht/baf_g/gesamt.pdf (19.12.2015).

FRG (2012): Aufstiegsfortbildungsförderungsgesetz in der Fassung der Bekanntmachung vom 8.

Oktober 2012 (BGBl. I S. 2126). Online: http://www.gesetze-im-

internet.de/bundesrecht/afbg/gesamt.pdf (19.12.2015).

FRG (2015): Pflanzenschutzgesetz vom 6. Februar 2012 (BGBl. I S. 148, 1281), zuletzt geändert

2015 (BGBl. I S. 1474).

Frank, Irmgard (2014): Umsetzung des Deutschen Qualifikationsrahmens (DQR) - Konsequenzen für

die Gestaltung von Aus- und Fortbildungsberufen und das Prüfungswesen. In: Eckart Severing ,

Reinhold Weiß [Hrsg.]: Weiterentwicklung von Berufen - Herausforderungen für die

Berufsbildungsforschung. S. 31-56. Online: http://kibb.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-A4F067A4-

42F58A05/kibb/agbfn_14_frank.pdf [Zugriff 24.04.2014].

Freistaat Sachsen, Landesamt für Umwelt, Landwirtschaft und Geologie (2013): Untersuchung zum

Berufsnachwuchs im Agrarbereich. In: Schriftenreihe des LfULG, Heft 5/2013. Online:

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_2013_Untersuchung_zum_Berufsnachwuchs_im_Agrarbereich.pdf (10.10.2015)

Hoffmann, V., Lamers, J., Kidd, A.D. (2000): Reforming the Organisation of Agricultural Extension in

Germany: Lessons for other Countries. Agren, Network Paper No. 98, ODI Agricultural Research

& Extension Network, London, 1-9.

Jiang Changyun (2005): The current situation of farmer training in China and the policy adjustment

trend. [J] Economic research reference, 2005,35:28-38.

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ausbildungsberufen-nach-bbighwo/rahmenlehrplaene.html (19.12.2015).

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berufliche Fortbildung nach dem Aufstiegsfortbildungsförderungsgesetz (AFBG) - Meister-BAföG -

zum 01.10.2010. Online: http://www.landwirtschaftskammer.de/bildung/pdf/finanzierung-

fortbildung.pdf

Milde, Bettina & Stefan Kroll (2015): Duale Berufsausbildung – noch attraktiv für

Studienberechtigte? In: Bundesinstitut für Berufliche Bildung. BERUFSBILDUNG IN ZAHLEN. BWP

4/2015: Online: URN: urn:nbn:de:0035-bwp-15404-2

Ministerium für Ländlichen Raum und Verbraucherschutz (MLV) Baden-Württemberg (2014): Mit

grünen Berufen unser Land gestalten. Aus- und Weiterbildung im Agrarbereich in Baden-

Württemberg. Online: https://www.landwirtschaft-


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and+2014?LISTPAGE=641351 (29.09.2015).

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kathmann/files/handbuch_curriculum_agrar_ern_hw_2_2013.pdf (25.10.2015).

Peoples Republic of China (PRC) (2014): Entscheidung des Staatsrats zur Beschleunigung der

Entwicklung der modernen Berufsbildung. Staatsrats-Dokument Nr. 19 / 2014 (Übersetzung im

Auftrag der GIZ).

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2014 – Basic situation in the country. Online:

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online.de/fileadmin/vlf_media/Positionen/Thesen-vlf-AG-Bildung-HS-agr-DLK-2015-vlf-

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den „Grünen Berufen“. Verein zur Förderung der Land-und Forstarbeiter e.V., Kassel. Online:

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pdf

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Economic issues, 2009, 06:89-91+95.


50 Appendices

6 Appendices

Appendix 1: Terms of reference

Framework and Role of DCZ

China is a key country for bilateral cooperation of the German Federal Ministry of Food and

Agriculture (BMEL). To intensify the bilateral exchange-relations, the BMEL and the Chinese Ministry

of Agriculture (MoA) have agreed establishing a German-Sino Agricultural Center (Center). It is an

important contribution to both, the implementation of the Sino-German Comprehensive Strategic

Partnership and China’s modernization in agriculture.

Focusing on policy dialogue, vocational training, science and research, coordination of the

agricultural and food industries, interagency cooperation the Center forms a roof for all BMEL

activities in China. It is intended to promote the coherent implementation of all bilateral measures

and provide a common platform for dialogue and cooperation for all German and Chinese actors.

Sector Background

The agricultural sector of China is facing various challenges, such as food security, competitiveness,

food safety, environmental hazards, sustainable agriculture, labour migration from the rural to the

urban areas. The Chinese Government wants to tackle the challenges through technological

modernisation of the sector. Science and research are the basis, but technologies and know how

need to reach farmers to become effective. As farmers need to professionalise, education and

knowledge transfer systems has to adapt to this new demand. Germany can provide long lasting

and internationally recognized experience in vocational education systems.

VET concepts are a well-established approach in the bilateral cooperation between Germany and

China, mostly focusing on the industrial sector, such as automotive industry. In agriculture the Hanns-

Seidel-Stiftung has over 15 years of experience in supporting the agricultural technical school in

Pingdu/Province of Shandong in qualifying teachers. There are other initiatives for training of

farmers, however there seems little systematization and discussion on the political and institutional

level.

Objective of this assignment is to lay the conceptual ground for the DCZ component Vocational

Training. Purpose is to provide an assessment of the agricultural vocational education and training

systems of both countries, the political priorities and practical experiences. The output are proposals

for future activities.

Organization

The consultant reports to the German Permanent Managing Director (PMD) of the DCZ. Contacts to

German and Chinese institutions are to be established either through DCZ or on the consultants own

initiative. A German and a Chinese consultant will be employed in parallel so that both consultants

are working as a team.


51 Appendices

Approach for the Assignment

So far, DCZ has little knowledge on how the Chinese agricultural VET system is working in practice.

The same lack of knowledge on the Chinese side concerning the German system was reported to

DCZ. Knowing the concepts, practical approaches and experiences is an asset in itself. During an

introductory study, the available material will be screened and an overview of the vocational

education and training systems in both countries will be produced. Training (in contrast to education)

is understood as short term qualification measures, mostly for adults.

Field observations of practical experiences will complement the description of the VET system. The

preliminary findings will be jointly discussed with key stakeholder and proposals for future action

drafted. This assignment is considered to be the first one in a row, providing overview and

orientation for more activities to come under this component.

The desired output of this assessment is, besides an overview of the vocational education and

training systems an outline of options for further action under this component. Envisaged follow-up

activities could be in-depth investigations on certain priority models, including study visits to the other

country or the elaboration of proposals for practical implementation of training measures, such as

curricula development, train the trainers etc.

Tasks of the Consultant

1. Overview of the vocational Education and Professional Training Systems in China

Tasks

Agree on a joint structure and methodology for this chapter between the German and the

Chinese expert

Identify and review literature and comparable material. There is extensive literature on VET

in general. Literature on the specific aspects of VET in the agricultural sector in China needs

to be investigated.

Consider publicly and privately operated systems. Different forms of education such as

formal school based systems, dual education or informal family systems should be

considered.

Brief description of the system: policy, legal basis, institutional aspects; financing

Brief description of the content of education and training offers, relate to labour market

Quantification of services offered, Nr. of participants, no of schools, courses, etc.

Are there assessments of quality and acceptance of systems available?

Compare the systems of both countries in a tabular format

List of key literature and sources for in-depth reading

Define priorities for field investigations in China together with the German expert.


52 Appendices

This task should be done as a desk work prior to the field visits in China. The findings of the desk

study will be validated during the following field visit to China and the report can be refined and

amended subsequently.

2. Field observations in China

Tasks

The national expert has identified and selected relevant schools and training institutions in

China which she had assessed. Both experts jointly analyse these observations. Additional

and complementary cases should be visited and assessed jointly.

Institutions, such as Ministries (on central and provincial level), academia or supervisory

bodies should be visited jointly, to collect data, elaborate descriptions and assess the

appreciation of the system by stakeholders from different angels.

Consider results of performance evaluations, if available.

Identify the potential for expansion.

Consider the labor market.

Interview political and institutional decision makers.

Validate or review the findings of the desk study (task 1).

This component needs to be prepared in advance to identify relevant cases and organize visits and

logistics. There is adequate traveling budget available, but travel time and cost needs to be kept

within reasonable limits. Travel plans will be discussed with PMD prior to bookings.

3. Conclusions and Recommendations

Tasks

Based on the above described investigations the team will elaborate conclusions and

recommendations for follow-up activities. This can comprise recommendations for the political and

institutional level, pilot activities on field level or further in-depth investigations in China and/or

Germany.

The team of experts will present their preliminary findings in a workshop with relevant stakeholders

in China before departing. Tentative dates are 27-29.10.2015.

The final report needs to be presented not later than 31.10.2015, as its conclusions need to be

incorporated into the workplan of DCZ for 2016.


53 Appendices

Inputs DCZ

- Contracting of one international and one national expert

- Support with logistics, invitation and organization of assignments in China, if needed and

requested by consultant;

- Procurement and provision of essential reference material for assignment, on request of

consultant

- Translation of the final report

- Interpretation during final seminar. If additional interpretation is needed during the assignment,

the consultant has to request this to DCZ in advance. It is expected that the Chinese expert

provides day to day translation during the assignment.

Outputs by the consultant (in English language):

Final Report in English language with the main chapters:

- Overview of the vocational Education and Professional Training Systems in both countries

- Field observations in China

- Conclusions and Recommendations

Delivery of final report not later than 31.10.2015

Resources

Personnel

up to 25 person/days national expert

up to 27 person/days international expert

Travel

One international return flight to china (international expert)

Per diem and accommodation in China

Local travel according to agreed travel plan

Lump sum budget for communication

Capacity development

One seminar at DCZ in Beijing


54 Appendices

Appendix 2: Time schedule and research topics

Table 18: Time Schedule

Date Activities

Dr. Tang Dr. Aenis

31.08.2015 Travel/Field work Wenzhou college

01.09.2015 Field work Wenzhou College / Travel

02.09.2015 Field work Wenzhou College

03.09.2015 Preparation of field work in Pingdu

07.09.2015 Travel / visit Pingdu School

08.09.2015 Field Work Pingdu School

09.09.2015 Field Work Pingdu School / travel

10.09.2015 Desk Research



21.09.2015 Desk research




05.10.2015 Travel

06.10.2015 Work Plan (field wok and reporting)

07.10.2015 Draft report

08.10.2015 Interview Plan, report 1st phase

09.10.2015 Interview Plan, report 1st phase

10.10.2015 Report 1st phase

11.10.2015 Report 1st phase

12.10.2015 Field work



15.10.2015 Analysis / Interview

16.10.2015 Analysis

17.10.2015 Analysis





26.10.2015 Draft recommendations

27.10.2015 Analysis / Preparation final Workshop

28.10.2015 Analysis / Preparation final Workshop

29.10.2015 Final Workshop at DCZ

30.10.2015 Draft Final Report

31.10.2015 Travel


55 Appendices

Interview guide: Key topics

1. What are the main challenges to vocational education and Training?

2. What will be the main changes (in the next 10 to 20 years) in the farms structure? (Farm size,

Labor (qualified – unqualified), Production (more specialized? Marketing, Cooperation)

3. What will in Your opinion happen to the small farms? What with existing large units?

4. What kind of new qualifications / competencies will farmers in future need? (production –

planning – marketing – etc.)

5. From where could they get these? (Long-term basic agricultural education? Short term trainings?)

6. In how far is there need to improve qualifications in the surrounding sectors (“agroindustry”, food

industry, …)

7. What are the main problems and difficulties of the existing agricultural education of farmers?

What are the challenges to farmer education? (in practical training?)

8. In how far / where do You see a need to change education programs / courses? (For farmers;

for teachers, extensionists, trainers?)

9. In how far could Germany be a model?

10. What do You want to learn from German system?

Table 19: Overview on Group Discussions

Institution Time Participants No* Specific Topics

Wenzhou Vocational

College of Science &

Technology

(WVCST)

2015-8-30

15:30-17:30

Leaders of the Municipal

College of Agriculture, the

Farmer College, the Academic

Affairs Office, the Human

Resources Department, and the

Service Center for Farmers in

Rural Areas and Agriculture

7 College situation

Agricultural vocational

training in Wenzhou

Agricultural vocational

training in the college

WVCST 2015-9-1

9:00-11:30

Heads of Departments (Farmer

College, Admission Office)

7 Concrete training

content

Methods, objectives

Problems

WVCST 2015-9-1

15:30-17:00

Department Heads, Teachers,

Trainees

10 Process of training

Training Requirements

Expectations of project

WVCST 2015-9-1

17:00-18:30

Department Heads, teachers of

the Service Center for Farmers

in Rural Areas and Agriculture

10 training requirement

Concrete methods

Problems

Expectation of project


56 Appendices

Pingdu Vocational

Education

Centre(PVEC)

2015-9-7

15:00-17:00

School Leaders (Dep. of

Agriculture, Dep. of Human

Resources and Social Security)

5 Agricultural education

and training in Pingdu

PVEC 2015-9-8

9:00-11:00

School Leaders、 Department

Heads

6 School situation

Training objectives,

methods and contents

PVEC 2015-9-8

14:00-15:30

Teachers 10 Training methods

Requirements

Problems

Expectations of project

PVEC 2015-9-8

15:30-17:00

Trainees 10 Process of training

Training requirements

Expectation of project

Ministry of Education

(MOE)

2015-10-12

9:00-11:00

Head of Divison of vocational

education and adult education

2 National agricultural

education and training

Expectations and

requirements of project

Ministry of

agriculture (MOA)

2015-10-13

9:00-11:00

Head of Division of science and

technology education

2 Expectations and

requirement to project

Beijing Vocational

College of

Agriculture Seminar

2015-10-14

9:00-11:00

College Leaders 、Agricultural

Broadcasting and Television

School、Training Dicision

4 college situation 、

target of training、

problems and difficults

、Expectation and

requirement to project

* excluding consultants


57 Appendices

Appendix 3: Names of persons, schools and institutions visited (for internal use)


58 Appendices

Appendix 4: Background information on the agricultural structure in Germany and its changes in

recent years

Agriculture traditionally is seen as an own sector, with the others being “industry and trade” and

“(handy-) crafts”. Agricultural production (0,8%) together with food and tobacco production (1,7%)

count for only 2,5% of the German gross value added of nearly 2,4 trillion Euro, with the relative

importance slowly decreasing since the 1990s (table 20). On the labor market, 1,6% of employees

work in the agricultural sector.

Table 20: Gross value added of Agriculture and Food production sectors in Germany

Year 1991 2000 2005 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries

Billion Euro 16.96 20.45 16.09 21.19 15.89 17.81 18.46 19.98

% 1.2 1.1 0.8 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8

Food production (+ tobacco)

Billion Euro 32.35 36.43 37.32 37.22 37.47 38.93 39.2 nn

% 2.3 2.0 1.9 1.7 1.8 1.7 1.7 nn

All industries Billion Euro 1,393.4 1,841.48 2,006.36 2,217 2,117.05 2,235.16 2,334.89 2,386.79

% 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Source: BMEL 2014

Typically, German farms are mixed farms, viz., they cultivate a crop rotation of cereals, potatoes,

beet etc., and they keep animals as well. Besides this there exist companies that are highly

specialized either on a certain animal (dairy cattle, pig fattening or breeding, laying hens, broilers),

on orchards, vineyards or on vegetables such as asparagus. Approximately 10% of farms

meanwhile have changed from conventional to organic production.

Due to historic reasons, there are great differences in the farm structure between the former Western

Germany, the “old states”, and the former Eastern Germany, the “new states”; in the old states

family farms of 50ha in average and private enterprises dominate, and in the new states large

corporate bodies which often cultivate more than 2,000 ha, some 7,000ha. Farms in the north-

western part of Germany are on average much larger than those in Southern part, the latter often

specialized to perennial crops such as vineyards and hops.

Table 21 gives an overview on the farm structure. There are altogether 285,000 farms of different

constitution:

Individual enterprises are family farms, owned by a single farmer with his/her family as

main workers. Depending on the size, unqualified or less qualified staff is being employed,

often seasonally during the time of working peaks such as harvesting;

Private companies are often jointly owned by a smaller number of farmers (often two) who

therewith create larger units or specialized enterprises such as large pig or hen farms. They

regularly employ both, untrained seasonal staff and farm workers trained in the Dual System

with the latter usually employed full-time;


59 Appendices

Corporate bodies are large units which are constituted as cooperatives, limited liability

companies, stock corporations or are state-owned farms.

The great majority in numbers are family farms. Slightly less than half of these create their main

(>85%) income by Agriculture or Horticulture, in other words there are still nearly half of all farms

part time farms of less than 5 ha. Whereas the private and corporate enterprises count only for

about 2% of the companies, over 1/3 of the overall crop and animal production lies in their hand.

Table 21: German agricultural companies according to their legal entity and selected attributes

Type No farms Agric. Land Cropland cereals pasture Dairy cows Pigs

1000 1000 ha 1000 animals

Family farms total 256 10,897.1 7,343 4,144.8 3,406.2 2,898.7 19,158.9

thereof part-income farms 132 2,768 1,669 1,033.9 1,064,4 288.4 2,427.2

Western / Old states total 238.2 9,389.6 6,207.3 3,484.5 3,042.6 2,805.6 18,880.8

Eastern / New states total 17.1 1,488.3 1,129.4 657.6 352.1 89.5 276.2

Main income family farms 124 8,129.1 5,674 3,110.9 2,341.8 2,610.3 16,731.7

Western / Old states 116.2 6,939.9 4,743.5 2,566.6 2,089.1 2,523.5 16,485

Eastern / New states 7.3 1,175.5 925.6 542.1 245.2 83.6 244.8

Private companies total 23.7 2,881.4 2,198.5 1,138.8 640 871.2 6,526.6

Western / Old states 17.7 1,737 1,255.5 639.3 443.1 696.1 5,318.1

Eastern / New states 6 1,139.7 940.9 498.6 194.8 173.8 1,208.6

Corporate bodies total 5.3 2,921.1 2,334.4 1,250.1 574.8 481.5 3,011.9

Western / Old states 1.6 109.2 53.4 27.9 51.2 12.8 251

Eastern / New states 3.7 2,811 2,280.7 1,222.2 523.1 468.7 2,760.9

Source: BMEL 2015


60 Appendices

Appendix 5: Agriculture map of Germany


61 Appendices

Appendix 6: The General education System in Germany

Source: Flornet.eu


62 Appendices

Appendix 7: Education Pathways in Agriculture (Germany)

Source: AID 2013


63 Appendices

Appendix 8: Education of Agricultural Company Leaders in Germany (2013)

Source: BMEL 2015


64 Appendices

Appendix 9: Overview on Vocational Schools in Agriculture, Forestry and Household Economics in

Germany

Source: BMEL 2015


65 Appendices

Appendix 10: The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training BIBB

Adapted from http://www.bibb.de/en/42.php

Development centre for new training regulations and platform for dialogue between the social

partners

…

The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training was established in 1970 on the basis of

the Vocational Training Act of 1969 as an institute for researching, developing and promoting out-

of-school vocational education and training.

Today, it is the acknowledged centre of excellence for research into and development of vocational

education and training in Germany, performing its duties within the context of the education policy

of the federal government.

The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is the scientific partner of the social

partners (employers and unions) and the federal government for the restructuring of occupations. It

supports coordination and agreement between employers, unions and government regarding new

educational approaches through research and development. It also shapes the process of developing

training regulations and is involved in their coordination with the corresponding framework school

curricula of the federal states.

One of the crucial tasks of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is to

collaborate “under the authority of the competent Federal Ministry in preparing training regulations

and other ordinances (...) “(article 90, paragraph 3, no. 1 BBiG). Through vocational education

research, the preconditions are created for ensuring that the training regulations can be newly

designed as well as revised and customized to keep up with economic, technological and social

changes. A 1972 agreement between federal and state governments (“joint memorandum”)

regulates the procedure for coordinating training regulations and framework curricula.

The further tasks of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training include

participating in the preparation of the annual Vocational Education and Training Report of

the Federal Ministry of Education and Research,

participating in the compiling of the Vocational Education and Training Statistics of the

Federal Statistical Office,

promoting pilot projects, including supporting scientific research,

participating in international cooperation in vocational education and training,

other administrative tasks of the federal government to promote vocational education and

training,

promoting the inter-company training centres and supporting the planning, establishment and

further development of these facilities,

managing the directory of recognised training occupations,


66 Appendices

performing the tasks described in the Distance Learning Protection Act and contributing to the

improvement and expansion of vocational distance learning through the promotion of

development projects.

The Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is made up of eight

representatives of the employers, eight representatives of the trade unions and eight representatives

of the state governments as well as five representatives of the federal government. Employers and

trade unions participate intensively in the development of training regulations by the Federal

Institute for Vocational Education and Training in order to turn the experience from training to good

use and to heighten acceptance of new training regulations in the enterprises providing training. This

intensive cooperation applies to the entire process. It starts with the joint elaboration of the

educational policy benchmarks essential for a regulatory measure and continues up to the adoption

of the training regulation. This adoption usually happens only after the competent social partners

have had the opportunity to comment on the draft, and the BIBB Board has approved it.

This procedure, generally called “principle of consensus” in the vocational educational policy

discussion, goes beyond the sphere of preparation of training regulations. It is also decisive in the

putting into practice of the training regulations.

At the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, essential tasks related to the

development of training regulations are dealt with in the department responsible for the

organisation of vocational education and training. There especially the preparatory research and

the actual regulatory procedures are performed, separately for each occupational field. Similarly,

the application of new and modernised training regulations and the putting into practice of new

examination structures are studied and evaluated in the BIBB.

…


67 Appendices

Appendix 11: Extension Organization in Germany

Source: Hoffmann, Lamers and Kidd (2000)


68 Appendices

Appendix 12: Contents of No.1 Central Documents on farmers' vocational education and training

over the years

Year Document name Contents on farmers' vocational education and training

2004 Opinions Concerning Several

Policies on Promoting the

Increase of Farmers' Income

Mobilize the enthusiasm of all circles of society to participate in farmers'

skills training, and encourage all kinds of education and training institutions

and employers to hold vocational skills training for farmers.

2005 Opinions on Several Policies

concerning Further

Strengthening Rural Work to

Improve the Agricultural

Comprehensive Production

Capacity

Comprehensively hold farmers' vocational skills training. Carry out

agricultural technology training combining with the adjustment of agricultural

structure and the development of characteristic agriculture. Rural middle

schools must also strengthen the education of sophisticated practical

agricultural technique. Further promote farmers' job training

2006 Several Opinions on Promoting

the Construction of New

Socialist Countryside

Expand the scale of sunshine project of rural labor transfer training, raise the

subsidy standard and enhance farmers' ability to change jobs. Accelerate

the establishment of government-supported, market-oriented training

mechanism with diversified operators. Integrate various educational

resources in rural areas to develop rural vocational education and adult

education.

2007 Several Opinions on Actively

Developing Modern

Agriculture and Promoting the

Construction of New Socialist

Countryside

Increase support for the "sunshine project" and other rural labor transfer and

employment trainings. Cultivate a number of senior and secondary

technicians among migrant workers to meet the needs of the development of

manufacturing industry. Encourage employers and training agencies to hold

target and order trainings. Organize and mobilize social forces to

participate in farmers' employment and labor transfer trainings.

2008 Several Opinions on

Strengthening Agricultural

Foundation Construction to

Promote Agricultural

Development and Increase

Farmers' Income

Organize the implementation of the new rural practical talents training

project, focus on the training of capable brains in planting and breeding,

science and technology leader, rural brokers and professional cooperation

organizations' leadership. Strive to improve the quality and entrepreneurship

of farmers and promote employment through entrepreneurship to enrich

people through entrepreneurship and promote agricultural development

through innovations. Continue to increase efforts on migrant workers' skills

training. Accelerate the construction of county rural vocational education and

training network and develop the secondary vocational education

integrating rural and urban areas.

2009 Some opinions on promoting

steady agricultural

development and farmers'

income growth

Support technical personnel and university graduates to work in the frontline

for agricultural technology promotion. Carry out agricultural technology

training to cultivate new farmers; strengthen the training of cooperative

personnel with financial aid of governments at all levels.

2010 Some Opinions on

Strengthening the Integration

of Urban and Rural

Development to Further

Consolidate the Foundation for

Agricultural and Rural

Development

Vigorously develop secondary vocational education and continue to

accelerate the process of tuition-free secondary vocational education in rural

areas. Gradually implement free training of labor reserve for new rural

labors.

2012 Enhancing the Ability for

Agricultural Technology

Promotion and Vigorously

Village cadres, principals of farmers' cooperatives, college graduates

working in the village and other leaders in rural development; the farmers

responsible for plant protection, epidemic prevention, water conservancy


69 Appendices

Developing Agricultural

Socialized Services

construction supporters, information officers, biogas workers and other rural

technicians; major planting / breeding households, agricultural machinery

households, brokers and other rural production and management talents.

Vigorously cultivate new type of professional farmers, and provide

agricultural skills training for rural junior and senior middle school graduates

who do not continue their schooling

2013 Some Opinions on Accelerating

the Development of Modern

Agriculture to Further Enhance

the Vitality of Rural

Development

Vigorously cultivate new farmers and rural practical talents and strengthen

agricultural vocational education and training. Make full use of all kinds of

training resources, increase efforts on the training of major households and

family farm operators to improve their production skills and management

level. Establish a talent bank and training bases for cooperative leaders,

and organize extensive trainings of cooperative leaders, business

management and counselors


Comprehensively Deepening

the Reform in Rural Areas and

Accelerating the

Modernization of Agriculture

Increase efforts on the promotion and application of sophisticated

agricultural practical technology and farmers' technical training. Strengthen

the education and training of new type of professional farmers and new

type of agricultural business operators.

Implement the national student-aid policy for secondary vocational

education, and strengthen rural vocational education and skills training to

meet the market demand


Strengthening Reform and

Innovation and Accelerating

the Construction of Agricultural

Modernization

Targeting at the junior and senior middle school graduates who do not

continue their schooling, promote the full coverage of secondary vocational

education and vocational skills training and gradually achieve free

secondary vocational education. Actively develop agricultural vocational

education and vigorously cultivate new type of professional farmers.


70 Appendices

Appendix 13: China's Main Policies on the Development of Farmers' Vocational Education and

Training

Issued by Document name Year of issuance

Training targets Training mode Training agency or plan

Ministry of

Agriculture

Opinions on the

Implementation

of the "Green

Certificate

Project"

1995 Mainly the staff of

township / village

agricultural

socialization service

systems with junior or

senior middle school

education, village

cadres, professional

planting / breeding

households, science and

technology

demonstration

households, and some

farmers taking the

positions requiring

certain technical skills

Short-term skills

training

Rural adult schools and

training agencies at or

above township level

(including agricultural

radio and television

schools, the county-level

secondary technical

schools, agricultural

mechanization schools,

the township farmers'

culture and technology

schools, agricultural

technology promotion

and training centers),

rural vocational schools,

etc.

General

Office of the

State Council

Notice on

Promoting the

Migrant

Workers-related

Work

2008 Migrant workers Vocational skills

training and rural

practical technical

training

The implementation of

the rural labor skilled

employment program,

sunshine program, rural

labor transfer training

program, spark

technology training, rain

plan and other relevant

training projects

Ministry of

Education,

Ministry of

Agriculture,

New

Professional

Farmers

Cultivation

Program for

Secondary

Vocational

Schools (for

Trial)

2014 Farmers and rural new

labors under 50 years

old with educational

level of / above junior

middle school (or its

equivalent), mainly

major planting /

breeding households,

family farm operators,

principals of farmers'

cooperatives, rural

brokers, rural

enterprises'

management personnel,

agricultural socialized

service personnel and

rural grassroots cadres,

etc.

The secondary

vocational

education of new

professional

farmers involves

five areas,

namely planting,

livestock and

poultry breeding,

aquaculture,

agricultural

engineering and

economic

management.

Agriculture-related

secondary and senior

vocational schools

recognized by the

government

General

Office of the

State Council

Opinions of the

State Council on

Better Serving

Migrant

2014 Rural fresh junior /


graduates who do not

continue their high

school / college

Academic

education

Vocational schools and

technical colleges


71 Appendices

Workers education may all

receive vocational

education.

General

Office of the

State Council

Decision of the

State Council on

Accelerating the

Development of

Modern

Vocational

Education

2014 Farmers, transferred

rural labors, on-the-job

workers, unemployed

persons, people with

disabilities, retired

soldiers, etc.

Rural fresh junior /


graduates who do not

continue their high

school / college

education

Academic

education and

short-term

training

Vocational schools and

technical colleges


72 Appendices

Appendix 14: List of important training programs for farmers in China

Dept. Training program

Start year Training targets

Ministry of

Agriculture

Green

Certificate

Project

Pilot project

in 1990,

officially

launched

in1994

The staff of township / village agricultural socialization service

systems with junior or senior middle school education, village cadres,

professional planting / breeding households, science and technology

demonstration households, and some farmers taking the positions

requiring certain technical skills

Ministry of

Agriculture、

Ministry of

Finance, Central

Committee of the

Communist Youth

League

cross-

century

young

farmers’

technology

training

1999 Young peasants. Outstanding young farmers under 40 years old

with at least junior middle school education level who are engaged

in agricultural production and management for more than two years.

We must attach importance to the training of village cadres, YCL

cadres, veterans, major households engaged in breeding or

planting, science and technology demonstration households,

especially the training of women and the ethnic minority youth

Ministry of

Science and

Technology,

Ministry of

Agriculture、

Ministry of Labor

and Social

Security, Central

Committee of the

Communist Youth

League

special

action on

spark

science and

technology

training

2003 Agricultural producers, migrant workers, township enterprises'

employees, rural brokers and grassroots cadres

Ministry of

Agriculture、

Ministry of

Finance

new

farmers’

technology

training

2006 Farmers specialized in agricultural production。

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Ministry of

Finance, Ministry

of Labor and

Social Security,

the Ministry of

Education,

Ministry of

Science and

Technology,

Ministry of

Construction

Sunshine

project of

rural labor

transfer

training

2004-2010 2004-2007: Migrant workers transferred to non-agricultural areas

(mainly manufacturing, service and construction industry)

2009: 1. Employees in agricultural and rural service industry,

agricultural products processing and other agriculture-related

industries, workers of rural characteristic secondary and tertiary

industry, leaders in farmers' entrepreneurship and rural

development, etc. 2. Workers of local secondary and tertiary

industry that meet the needs of county economic and social

development; 3. Farmers willing to work in non-local areas and

returned migrant workers

2010: 1. Workers of agricultural and rural major projects-related

industries (agricultural use and maintenance, village-level animal

epidemic prevention staff, biogas production and management

personnel, village / township construction craftsmen, etc.); 2. Farmer

entrepreneurship (returned migrant workers, major planting /

breeding households, major households using agricultural machinery

and the college and secondary technical school graduates willing to

launch businesses in rural areas; 3. Cooperatives' management


73 Appendices

personnel; 4. Practitioners of agricultural service system (livestock

and poultry breeder, fishery crew, rural brokers, practitioners

engaged in the prevention and control of crop diseases and insect

pests); 5. Agricultural products processing workers; 6. Characteristic

professional farmers. 7. On-the-job migrant workers

LGOP Rain Plan 2006 Poor farmers: 1. Young and middle-aged farmers (16-45 years old)

registered for poverty reduction; 2. Demobilized soldiers (including

technical sergeants, the same below) of needy families; 3. Cadres

and leaders in lifting people out of poverty of the key villages for

poverty alleviation; 4. Students of secondary or senior vocational

schools.

Organization

Department of

the CPC Central

Committee,

Ministry of

Agriculture

Rural

practical

talents’

leadership

training

program

2011 Members of the village's "two committees", heads of the farmers

cooperatives, family farm operators (major planting and breeding

households), college graduate village cadres and other grassroots

service personnel in rural areas

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Ministry of

Finance

Sunshine

project of

rural labor

training

2011 Key targets: Major households engaged in planting or breeding,

family farms, farmers' cooperatives, the backbone of the farmers of

agricultural social service system

Specifically: 1. Special agricultural technology training: backbone

farmers in the implementation areas of high-yield grain, cotton and

oil projects, backbone farmers of the production bases of "food

basket" products, backbone farmers and herdsmen in major counties

breeding cattle, sheep, cows and pigs, and the backbone fishermen

in major fishery production counties

2. Agricultural vocational skills training: professional cooperatives'

backbone members, social service organizations' staff and the

farmers receiving subsidies for the procurement of agricultural

machinery; carry out farmers' training combined with the creation of

"beautiful villages".

3. Agricultural entrepreneurship training: Targets of new

professional farmers training, heads of cooperatives and rural

entrepreneurs youth.

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Ministry of

Education,

Ministry of

Science and

Technology,

Ministry of Human

Resources and

Social Security

Modern

agricultural

talents

support

program

2011 Modern agricultural talents: talents for agricultural scientific

research, agricultural extension personnel, heads of leading

enterprises and agricultural cooperatives, rural production experts

and farmer brokers

Ministry of

Agriculture

New

professional

farmers

cultivation

project

Pilot project

in 2012,

expanded

demonstration

scale in 2015

The new type of professional farmers refer to the modern

agricultural practitioners engaged in agricultural production with

professional skills whose income is from agriculture and reaches a

certain level, including production farmers, skilled farmers and social

service farmers. Production farmers include the backbone members

of major breeding / planting households, family farms and farmers'

cooperatives; skilled farmers include the agricultural labors who


74 Appendices

have been serving agricultural enterprises, farmers' cooperatives,

family farms and other new types of agricultural businesses; social

service farmers include the pre-production, production and post-

production agricultural machinery service staff, plant protection

personnel for unified control of plant pests, village-level animal

epidemic prevention workers, rural information workers, rural

brokers, land arbitration mediators, soil testing and formula

fertilization workers and other agricultural socialized service

personnel.

In principle, the training targets should not be older than 55 years of

age.

Ministry of

Agriculture,

Ministry of

Education,

Communist Youth

League

Modern

youth

farmers

training

plan

2015 Major planting and breeding households with certain industrial base

and a high school degree or above (or equivalent to high school) at

the age of 18-45, family farm operators, backbone members of

farmers' cooperatives, returned college graduates for

entrepreneurship, senior and secondary vocational school graduates,

returned migrant workers and veterans, giving priority to new type

of agricultural business operators.


75 Appendices

Appendix 15: List of farmers' vocational education and training programs in Beijing

Agency Nature Training targets Training method

Beijing Municipal

Commission of

Agriculture

Government

department

General agricultural workers, professionals of

Township Comprehensive Agricultural Service

Center, the technical backbone of other

farmers' specialized cooperative economic

organizations, new types of farmers

Seminars, field schools

Agricultural Bureau Government

department

Agricultural management personnel and

technology demonstration households, etc.

Short-term training courses,

field schools, etc.

Garden

Afforestation

Bureau

Government

department

Grassroots management personnel and

frontline staff

Short-term training courses

Beijing Municipal

Science and

Technology

Commission

Government

department

Scientific and technical personnel Not directly organize

trainings, usually cooperate

with other departments

Beijing Economic

Management

Station

Government

department

Rural management information workers

Key management personnel of the new type of

rural collective economic organizations

Financial accounting personnel training


Beijing Municipal

Women's

Federation

NGO Female farmer brokers, female experts in

getting rich, etc.


Beijing University

of Agriculture

Research institute College students majoring in agriculture-

related curricula

Academic education,

undertaking short-term

trainings of government

departments

Beijing Academy

of Agricultural

Sciences

Research institute Grassroots agricultural technicians, students

majoring in agriculture-related curricula

Academic education,



departments

Beijing Agricultural

Vocational

Education College

Vocational

college

Students majoring in agriculture-related

curricula, new farmers, agricultural technical

personnel, etc.

Academic education,



departments

Beijing Agricultural

Broadcasting and

Television School

Vocational

college

Students majoring in agriculture-related

curricula, agricultural technical personnel

Academic education,



departments, adult schools,

etc.


76 Appendices

Appendix 16: List of the agricultural universities and colleges in China

Name Location Name Location Name Location Name Location

China

Agricultural

University

Beijing Hunan

Agricultur

al

University

Hunan Xinjiang

Agricultural

University

Xinjiang Southwest

Forestry

University

Yunnan

Nanjing

Agricultural

University

Jiangsu Henan

Agricultur

al

University

Henan Gansu

Agricultural

University

Gansu Beijing

University of

Agriculture

Beijing

Huazhong

Agricultural

University

Hubei Nanjing

Forestry

University

Jiangsu Yunnan

Agricultural

University

Yunnan Tianjin

Agriculture

University

Tianjin

Northwest A & F

University

Shaanxi Hebei

Agricultur

al

University

Hebei Zhejiang

Agricultural

University

Zhejiang Henan

University of

Animal

Husbandry &

Economy

Henan

Beijing Forestry

University

Beijing Shenyang

Agricultur

al

University

Liaoning Shanxi

Agricultural

University

Shanxi Zhongkai

University of

Agriculture

and

Engineering

Guangdo

ng

South China

Agricultural

University

Guangdong Inner

Mongolia

Agricultur

al

University

Inner

Mongolia

Zhejiang

Ocean

University

Zhejiang Jilin

Agriculture

Science And

Technology

College

Jilin

Northeast

Forestry

University

Heilongjiang Shanghai

Ocean

University

Shanghai Guangdong

Ocean

University

Guangdon

g

Xinyang

College of

Agriculture

and Forestry

Henan

Fujian

Agriculture and

Forestry

University

Fujian Anhui

Agricultur

al

University

Anhui Tarim

University

Xinjiang Shandong

Agriculture

and

Engineering

University

Shandong

Sichuan

Agricultural

University

Sichuan Jilin

Agricultur

al

University

Jilin Dalian

Ocean

University

Liaoning Shandong

Agricultural

University

Shandong

Northeast

Agricultural

University

Heilongjiang Central

South

University

of

Forestry

and

Technolog

Hunan Heilongjiang

Bayi

Agricultural

University

Heilongjian

g

Jiangxi

Agricultural

University

Jiangxi


77 Appendices

y

Qingdao

Agricultural

University

Shandong Ocean

University

of China

Qingdao Shihezi

University

Xinjiang


78 Appendices

Appendix 17: Some agricultural vocational colleges in China

Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture

Shanxi Forestry Vocational Technical College

Shanxi Yuncheng Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Liaoning Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Liaoning Forestry Vocational Technical College

Jilin Engineering Vocational College

Heilongjiang Agricultural Engineering Vocational College

Heilongjiang Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Heilongjiang Forestry Vocational Technical College

Heilongjiang Vocational College of Agricultural Economy

Heilongjiang Biological Engineering Vocational College

Heilongjiang State Farms Science Technology Vocational College

Shanghai Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry

Jiangsu Agri-animal Husbandry Vocational College

Yangzhou Vocational College of Environment and Resources

Jiangsu Vocational College of Agriculture and Forestry

Nantong Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Suzhou Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Zhejiang Agriculture and Business College

Anhui Forestry Vocational Technical College

Zhangzhou College of Science & Technology

Fujian Forestry Vocational Technical College

Fujian Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Xiamen Ocean Vocational College

Jiangxi College of Biological Science & Technology

Jiangxi Agricultural Engineering Vocational College

Jiangxi Environmental Engineering Vocational College

Shandong Animal Husbandry and Veterinary College

Henan Vocational College of Agriculture

Hubei Ecology Vocational College

Hunan Environment and Ecology Vocational College

Hunan Biological Electromechanical Vocational Technical College

Guangxi Ecological Engineering Technical College

Guangxi Vocational Technical College

Guangxi Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Chengdu Agricultural College of Science & Technology

Yunnan Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Yuxi Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Yunnan Forestry Vocational Technical College

Yunnan Vocational College of Tropical Crops

Yangling Vocational and Technical College

Gansu Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Gansu Animal Husbandry Engineering Technical College

Gansu Forestry Vocational Technical College

Qinghai Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine College

Xinjiang Vocational and Technical College of Agriculture

Yili Vocational Technical College

Wenzhou College of Science & Technology