No Degrees Necessary; China expands its vocational training to narrow the economic divide.

Byline: Quindlen Krovatin

China is turning to vocational training as a means of prolonging its economic ascendancy and quelling unrest. It's an urgent priority, given that recent college graduates can't find jobs and the lack of educational opportunities in the countryside is stoking rural unrest. Last month the All-China Federation of Trade Unions announced a "small business-credit plan for nationwide workers," which will provide $125 million in loans to help some 250,000 laid-off workers get additional vocational training in order to find new jobs. Similarly, the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China endorsed a development blueprint to create a "new socialist countryside," including higher subsidies to farmers for training in modern agricultural methods.

The appeal of vocational schools is growing partly in response to the growing realization that a Chinese university degree can be a ticket to nowhere. When China's schools reopened after the Cultural Revolution, there weren't enough universities to accommodate a generation of disenfranchised scholars. Now the opposite is true. In the last seven years the number of Chinese college graduates has quintupled, reaching 4.1 million this year. But the National Development and Reform Commission ...