A new notice released by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province on October 8 says that three polytechnics in the province are scheduled to be upgraded to universities that offer bachelor's degrees.
The notice indicates that Guangdong plans to apply to China's Ministry of Education to set up three public vocational universities, which will be born out of Guangzhou Panyu Polytechnic, Shunde Polytechnic, and Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, respectively.
The polytechnic-to-university conversion is part of China's move to reform its vocational education in recent years. In 2019, the State Council issued The Implementing Program for National Vocational Education Reform, which mentioned the launch of vocational education at the undergraduate level as a measure to "improve the educational system for high-level applied talents."
In the same year, the Ministry of Education announced the first group of 15 vocational universities, all of which are the result of the upgrading of existing polytechnics. Currently, 51 vocational universities in the country have been qualified to grant bachelor's degrees equivalent to those from general universities, including four in Guangdong.
Reporter | Chen Siyuan
Photo | Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology
Editor | Nan, Monica, James
