Government should make legislative efforts to underpin school-enterprise cooperation in the development of vocational education as well as providing equity in national exams, a deputy to the National People’s Congress suggested on March 8.

Shen Jian, director-general of the Education Department of Jiangsu province made the statement while attending the current NPC session in Beijing.  

He proposed that regulations should be made to clarify the duties of relevant government departments and lead them to provide support for school-enterprise cooperation within the scope of their duties.

Specific policies and measures concerning the cooperation should also be further defined, such as making clear the preferential policies for the enterprises, and spurring the government to set aside special funds for the cooperation.

“For those enterprises which build vocational schools independently with the aim of providing training and internship for students, they can enjoy preferential taxation,” Shen said.

Enterprises should take social responsibility when involved in vocational education and include relevant conditions in their corporate social responsibility reports to foster long-term cooperation, according to Shen.

“With 200 different exams held nationwide testing 30 million examinees every year, relevant legislation is still needed in China.”

Shen suggested that an examination law should be formulated to define the categories of national exams and regulate their implementation.

“Based on the examination law, various regulations of different types of exams are laid down as to accelerate the construction of a complete legal system for national exams with Chinese characteristics,” Shen said.