Deng Zhixian, a young contestant from Guangdong province, thought he had no chance of winning gold at China's national poverty alleviation vocational skills competition in August 2020, but now he has his sights firmly set on impressing on the global stage at the WorldSkills Competition scheduled for 2024 in France.

The competition in China aimed to encourage participants from impoverished families to overcome poverty by mastering skills.

Deng's family had been driven into poverty while struggling to pay for an ill family member's medical bills.

After failing his senior middle school entrance exam, he decided to enroll in Guangdong Machinery Technician College to learn new skills.

Deng participated in the national competition demonstrating his machine tool handling skills he learned at the college.

Guangdong has implemented a skilled workers program to aid the manufacturing industry in recent years. As the program proceeded, skilled worker academies in the province carried out events using skills to alleviate poverty.

At a public lecture for the national competition, Luo Liping, who is also from a poor family in Guangdong, said that learning a skill is just a starting point and also key to poverty alleviation.

She, then a student at Guangdong Province Technician College of Light Industry, won a silver medal at the 45th WorldSkills Competition held in Russia in 2019. Central and provincial authorities rewarded her, which improved her family's living conditions and helped kickstart her career.

Luo is now training the next generation. "I will continue to work hard, make the trainees useful to society and help more young people overcome poverty and realize their dreams by grasping skills," she said.

Guangdong's skilled workers program has helped to promote the high-quality development of the labor force and expand careers.

It has supported the establishment of 183 key majors and 40 characteristic majors centering on advanced manufacturing, strategic emerging industries and modern services. It has also set up 48 vocational education demonstration groups and 146 industrial academies.

The program organized and carried out an innovation campaign for strengthening higher vocational colleges.

To advance the program, the authorities released a development plan for skilled workers' literacy and organized the compilation of 27 related teaching materials.

The province is currently home to 478 vocational schools with a combined enrollment of more than 2 million students, as well as 148 skilled workers schools that boast 634,000 students.

The program has prioritized training industrial workers and farmers. Nearly 300 vocational schools in Guangdong have carried out more than 4,000 vocational training programs.

It is planned to develop several high-level vocational schools and technician colleges to promote matching skilled workers to where they are needed in the economy to boost economic growth during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). Its goal is to build a professional training system during the period, which will comprise skills training for industrial workers and farmers.