Education expansion in Shenzhen, China: Its interface with economic development

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-0593(97)00025-4 Get rights and content

Abstract

The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone of China was set up as a development prototype in 1980. Soon afterwards, the lack of trained manpower emerged as a major obstacle to economic development. In response, planners favoured education as a means to facilitate development, with both formal and non-formal education systems soon expanding rapidly. This article examines the strategies adopted for expanding education and explores observed problems in a case study of Shenzhen. On-the-job training has become an important source of human resource development. The dilemmas of general versus vocational/technical education and formal versus non-formal have been complicated by contradictions between the non-decentralised and decentralised aspects of educational administration as well as the State imperatives and local needs.

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