China’s TVET Teachers and Their Professionalization

China has a long history of handicraft, but a mature apprenticeship system has not been developed. The beginning of China’s vocational education system came into being with the set up of China’s vocational schools. During the Westernization Movement (yang wu yun dong) in the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty (1616–1909) began to establish and develop a modern military, as well as mining and transportation industries and industrial schools. Factories were set up during that period to train skilled workers and technicians. Afterward, in 1904, the Qing government issued The Constitution of Imperial Schools (zou ding xue tang zhang cheng), which brought industrial education in line with the formal education system. This action initiated the establishment of China’s school-type vocational education system. The present vocational education system is based on that system, which characterizes its full-time and various other levels of vocational schools as the core, attached to short-term vocational training (Li, 1994). In China, the Confucian idea that “Those who do mental labor rule and those who do manual labor are ruled” (lao xin zhe zhi ren, lao li zhe zhi yu ren) had a deep influence on the Chinese traditional knowledge-oriented idea. Even today, the practical or manual occupations are generally looked down upon. Furthermore, China’s present college entrance examination