Pathways for Constructing China’s Highly “Dual-Qualified” Teaching Force in the New Era: A Textual Analysis of Nine Chinese Vocational Education Policies (2019–2025)

3.1 Identification of Related Policies and Case Texts

The policy texts were retrieved using the keyword “dual-qualified teaching faculty” through multiple channels, including the official website of the Ministry of Education, policy databases, and academic journals, to ensure comprehensive coverage and timeliness. This study identified important national-level policy documents related to highly “dual-qualified” teachers issued in China between 2019 and 2025. This period covers a critical stage of China’s vocational education reform, particularly marked by the introduction of several key documents (see Table 1), including the Implementation Plan for National Vocational Education Reform (referred to as “the Plan”), the Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of Modern Vocational Education (referred to as “the Opinions”), the Vocational Education Quality Enhancement Action Plan (2020–2023), the Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Modern Vocational Education System Construction, and the Trial Standards for the Certification of “Dual-Qualified” Teachers in Vocational Education, which have provided clear policy guidance and framework for the development of “dual-qualified” teaching faculty.

3.2 Method

This study employed the textual analysis method to investigate the experiences and strategies in developing “dual-qualified” teaching faculty. The research process consists of three main stages: The first stage involved text organization and corpus extraction. The study selected policy documents on “dual-qualified” teacher development from 2019 to 2025 as fundamental research materials. Through close reading and in-depth analysis, the core corpus directly related to “dual-qualified” teacher development was extracted, forming the analytical foundation of this study. The second stage focused on systematic coding and cultivation pathway refinement. Grounded in a qualitative research paradigm and utilizing the NVivo 12 Plus analysis tool with “article” as the minimum analytical unit, the extracted textual materials underwent three-level coding. The process began with open coding, where text content was initially segmented and labeled to identify key concepts related to teacher cultivation. This was followed by axial coding to categorize and integrate initial codes, establishing logical relationships between concepts. Finally, selective coding was conducted centering on the core issue of “dual-qualified” teacher development, abstracting main concepts and crystallizing four representative cultivation pathways. The coding process referenced the grounded theory approach proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998). The third stage compared cultivation pathways for thematic synthesis. Focusing on the central theme of “dual-qualified” teacher development, this phase conducted a comparative analysis of development pathways across policy documents while incorporating exemplary cases from the 2022 National Vocational Education Training Program. Ultimately, four representative teacher cultivation pathways were synthesized, forming the theoretical construction and policy analysis framework of this study.

4.1 Ensuring “Dual Qualifications”: Standardizing the Accreditation Mechanism for “Dual-Qualified” Teachers

The study finds that standardizing the accreditation mechanism for “dual-qualified” teachers constitutes a crucial pathway for cultivating high-level “dual-qualified” teaching faculty. This is primarily achieved through four approaches: establishing “dual-qualified” teacher certification standards, standardizing the implementation process of certification, regulating teacher recruitment systems, and improving the part-time teacher system. These measures not only ensure the quality of vocational education faculty recruitment but also promote sustainable optimization of teaching teams in vocational institutions.

In 2010, Chongqing took the lead in issuing the “Chongqing Secondary Vocational School ‘Dual-Qualified’ Teacher Certification Standards”, becoming the first local standard nationwide (Chongqing Municipal Education Commission 2010). Subsequently, provinces including Fujian, Henan, Jilin, and Xinjiang introduced relevant documents, providing practical experience for “dual-qualified” teacher certification across the country. In 2022, the Ministry of Education released the “Basic Standards for ‘Dual-Qualified’ Teachers in Vocational Education (Trial)”, which for the first time explicitly defined the certification scope, competency requirements, and procedures for “dual-qualified” teachers at the national level, categorizing them into primary, intermediate, and advanced tiers (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2022). From 2020 to 2023, regions including Beijing, Jiangxi, Xinjiang, Guangxi, and Chongqing further refined their certification methods, gradually forming a multi-level standard system from local to national levels, thereby providing institutional safeguards for the cultivation and selection of “dual-qualified” teachers.

Establishing certification standards for “dual-qualified” teachers represents the primary task in standardizing faculty development. In policy documents from 2019 to 2025, key measures regarding the establishment of “dual-qualified” teacher standards include formulating “dual-qualified” teacher standards, creating a professional standard system for teachers, clarifying the scope of “dual-qualified” teacher certification, and specifying important dimensions of certification standards. The Ministry of Education requires local authorities to develop hierarchical professional standard systems covering public courses, specialized courses, and practical courses for both secondary and higher vocational education. When formulating “dual-qualified” teacher certification standards, emphasis is placed on prioritizing teacher ethics as the primary criterion, highlighting the assessment of both theoretical and practical teaching capabilities, and focusing on teaching reform achievements, professional development accomplishments, and enterprise work experience. Regarding the scope of certification, it is explicitly targeted primarily at specialized course teachers (including internship instructors) in vocational schools, while public course teachers, other teaching staff, and part-time teachers may be certified if they meet the requirements.

Standardizing the implementation process for “dual-qualified” teacher certification constitutes a crucial component of faculty development. Policies stipulate that provincial-level education administrative departments are responsible for organizing, leading, and coordinating the certification process. Furthermore, the certification procedures have been further clarified, requiring the establishment of expert evaluation committees composed of diverse stakeholders, including education departments, industry enterprises, and institutional experts, with provisions for review and documentation of certification results.

Regulating the teacher recruitment system represents a significant measure for raising the entry standards of “dual-qualified” teachers. Policies mandate dual-competency-oriented recruitment criteria for new teachers, requiring vocational institution faculty to possess at least three years of enterprise work experience, while gradually phasing out the recruitment of fresh graduates.

Regarding the recruitment of highly skilled professionals, academic qualifications have been appropriately relaxed, with direct recruitment mechanisms established that allow technical experts with substantial enterprise experience to join vocational institutions without written examinations. Policies also explicitly specify qualification requirements for specialized course teachers, mandating corresponding technical skill levels and requiring professional technical personnel to obtain teaching qualifications.

The improvement of the part-time teacher system in vocational institutions serves as a crucial measure to expand channels for highly skilled professionals to enter vocational education, as evidenced by the newly revised Vocational Education Law (2022) which explicitly permits vocational institutions to employ master craftsmen, model workers, skilled artisans, and intangible cultural heritage inheritors as either full-time or part-time faculty to participate in talent cultivation, technical development, and skills transmission (National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China 2022). To further standardize part-time teacher management, the Ministry of Education and three other ministries revised the Management Measures for Part-time Teachers in Vocational Schools, implementing three concrete measures: first, launching the Modern Mentor Special Appointment Program to allocate dedicated positions for high-level technical experts from industries and enterprises; second, establishing flexible employment mechanisms by optimizing staffing structures through a combination of permanent and rotating positions; and third, enhancing supporting infrastructure by creating high-skilled talent workshops to attract experts through part-time teaching, collaborative research, and project participation (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2023).

4.2 Cultivating “Dual Competencies”: Industry-Education Integration for Dual-Track Development of “Dual-Qualified” Teachers

The research reveals that the dual-track cultivation of vocational education teachers through industry-education integration serves as a crucial pathway for enhancing the quality of vocational education faculty. This approach is primarily advanced through three key measures: supporting vocational technical teacher education, establishing joint government-industry-school teacher training bases, and collaboratively developing vocational teacher training curriculum systems.

Policies propose guiding a group of high-level engineering universities to establish vocational technical teacher education institutions, aiming to cultivate “dual-qualified” teachers with both engineering technology and pedagogical competencies. Simultaneously, the policies encourage high-quality vocational colleges to transform into vocational technical teacher education institutions and support universities in establishing relevant vocational technical teacher education programs. Regarding advanced-level vocational teacher cultivation, the Development Plan for Professional Degree Graduate Education (2020–2025) further emphasizes expanding enrollment in professional master’s degree programs and promoting industry-education integrated cultivation models (Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council & Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2020). In practice, leading engineering universities such as Tianjin University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Zhejiang University of Technology have joined the vocational teacher cultivation system, adopting a tripartite cultivation model combining “engineering courses + education modules + enterprise internships”. This model has effectively enhanced vocational teachers’ professional theoretical literacy and industry practical capabilities, strengthening the relevance and adaptability of vocational education talent cultivation.

Beyond developing high-quality vocational technical teacher education, multi-stakeholder participation in teacher cultivation represents a key initiative in the new era for deepening industry-education integration and strengthening teachers’ practical teaching competencies. Specifically, multi-stakeholder participation manifests in supporting vocational institutions and enterprises to jointly establish “dual-qualified” teacher training bases, collaboratively develop vocational teacher training curriculum systems, and create customized courses. In 2019, China planned to establish 100 school-enterprise cooperative “dual-qualified” teacher training bases and 100 national-level enterprise practice bases (State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2019). These efforts involve building national-level and provincial-level “dual-qualified” teacher training bases by leveraging leading enterprises and high-level institutions. Furthermore, the policies propose strengthening program development, forming high-quality teacher training teams, and utilizing national vocational education training bases to cultivate “dual-qualified” teachers.

4.3 Enhancing Dual Competencies: Optimizing the Training System for Highly “Dual-Qualified” Teaching Faculty

Research indicates that optimizing the training system for “dual-qualified” teaching faculty primarily enhances teacher competencies and teaching quality through four major initiatives: establishing a two-way exchange mechanism for highly skilled personnel between schools and enterprises, jointly building teacher development centers, improving the regular enterprise practice system for teachers, and constructing a post-service professional development mechanism for “dual-qualified” teachers.

First, establishing a two-way exchange mechanism for highly skilled personnel between schools and enterprises. The Implementation Plan for National Vocational Education Reform (State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2019) proposes creating a two-way exchange mechanism for school and enterprise personnel by leveraging vocational education parks, vocational education groups, and industry-education integration enterprises. It requires teachers engaged in practical teaching to return to frontline enterprise work for 3–6 months every five years. Additionally, it encourages central state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises, and large private enterprises to establish visiting engineer programs, teacher enterprise practice mobility stations, and master craftsmen studios to strengthen school-enterprise collaboration. Furthermore, most policies mention building discipline-specific vocational education teacher teaching innovation teams, where teachers collaborate in modular teaching, and establishing “dual-qualified” master teacher studios, enabling master craftsmen to guide school teachers in continuously improving their professional, technical and practical teaching abilities.

Second, constructing a post-service professional development mechanism for “dual-qualified” teachers. To promote the post-service professional development of “dual-qualified” teachers, the Vocational College Teacher Quality Improvement Plan (2021–2025) (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China 2021) proposes establishing a four-tier training system with national demonstration leadership, provincial-level coordination and implementation, city-county linkage support, and school-based specialized training. This comprehensive training mechanism aims to holistically enhance the quality of vocational college teachers. During implementation, the plan requires precise analysis of training needs based on different stages of teacher professional development, scientifically designing training programs, and adopting progressive training models with tiered and phased training approaches. Training formats include blended offline workshops, online training, paired learning, job-shadowing training, internship training, study visits, and post-training practice, offering flexible and diverse methods to tailor training programs to teachers’ needs.

Simultaneously, the plan mandates full implementation of a five-year cyclical rotation training system for all teachers, carrying out teacher degree advancement initiatives, and offering directional training programs for vocational school teachers pursuing professional graduate degrees. It strengthens the management and diagnostic improvement of teacher training processes, requiring regular reassessment of “dual-qualified” teachers’ competencies every five years, with emphasis on job performance evaluations during appointment periods to ensure continuous updating of teachers’ knowledge and skills. Policies also require innovating and optimizing training content, and developing new training projects aligned with local characteristic industries.

Third, improving the regular enterprise practice system for teachers. According to policy requirements, specialized course teachers of vocational schools must complete no less than one month of cumulative enterprise practice annually, with exploration of establishing a one-year educational probation and three-year enterprise practice system for new teachers. In 2019, the Ministry of Education proposed establishing 100 national-level enterprise practice bases. By 2023, China’s Ministry of Education had selected 100 central and state-owned enterprises as national vocational education teacher practice bases, providing over 20,000 practice positions that significantly enhanced teachers’ practical capabilities (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2023).

Fourth, leveraging exemplary construction experiences for demonstration and leadership. This includes harnessing “dual-qualified” teachers’ leading roles in comprehensive education, enterprise practice, teaching reform, social services, and teacher professional development. The approach promotes best practices through exemplary cases and the growth pathways/methods of “dual-qualified” teachers. The development status of “dual-qualified” teachers has been incorporated as a key evaluation indicator in multiple national projects, including the “Double High” construction plan and the quality secondary vocational schools and programs construction plan.

4.4 Improving Incentive and Supervision-Evaluation Mechanisms for Highly “Dual-Qualified” Teaching Faculty

The establishment of robust incentive and supervision-evaluation mechanisms for “dual-qualified” teaching faculty plays a vital role in enhancing professional identity and improving the quality of “dual-qualified” teacher development. This mechanism primarily consists of two pathways: the incentive mechanism and the supervision-evaluation mechanism.

The incentive mechanism aims to expand career development opportunities and improve compensation for “dual-qualified” teachers. The Notice on the Certification of “Dual-Qualified” Teachers in Vocational Education explicitly requires preferential treatment for “dual-qualified” teachers in promotions (professional titles), training opportunities, and commendation selections, stipulating that their class-hour fees should in principle be higher than those for regular teachers at equivalent levels (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2023). Furthermore, the government provides targeted teaching opportunities, on-the-job training, and enterprise practice experiences tailored to different career stages of “dual-qualified” teachers. To further optimize incentives, policies encourage establishing diversified performance-based compensation systems, introducing merit-based pay, incorporating training hours (credits) into workload assessments, and using these as references for performance-based salary distribution. Regarding promotions, policies emphasize the importance of “dual-qualification” competencies, requiring candidates to possess enterprise work experience and obtain national vocational skill certificates or corresponding professional titles, thereby ensuring the professional and practical capabilities of “dual-qualified” teaching teams.

The supervision-evaluation mechanism emphasizes the developmental orientation for “dual-qualified” teachers by reforming teacher assessment systems. Policies stress establishing dynamic adjustment mechanisms that allow both entry/exit and promotion/demotion. In terms of evaluation content, they mandate including enterprise production project experience and performance achievements in the assessment criteria. For evaluation subjects, they create multi-stakeholder assessment systems involving vocational institutions, industries/enterprises, and training-evaluation organizations. Regarding evaluation formats, they implement categorized teacher assessment reforms, establishing multidimensional professional development and diversified evaluation mechanisms. Pilot programs conduct tiered assessments of specialized course teachers’ technical skills and teaching capabilities, using these as key references for contract renewals, position-level promotions, and performance-based compensation (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China 2021).

5.1 Standardizing the Accreditation Mechanism for Highly “Dual-Qualified” Teachers

The formulation of certification standards for highly “dual-qualified” teachers and professional teaching standards constitutes a critical measure for China to enhance the standardization of teacher accreditation. From a policy evolution perspective, China has gradually established a system characterized by local pilot initiatives (e.g., Chongqing issuing the first local standard in 2010) followed by national unification (the 2022 Trial Standards for the Certification of “Dual-Qualified” Teachers in Vocational Education). Regarding standardized entry requirements, the policies focus on two aspects. First, they elevate the practical teaching competency thresholds for vocational school teachers. For instance, since 2019, vocational institutions have in principle recruited specialized course teachers exclusively from candidates with over 3 years of enterprise experience, essentially discontinuing fresh graduate hires. Existing research identifies the fundamental requirement for “dual-qualified” teachers as simultaneously possessing teaching qualifications and professional technical certifications – the “dual-qualification” or “dual-certificate” standard (Sun and Lu 2013). Current policies institutionalize enterprise experience as an entry barrier, effectively ensuring teachers’ “dual qualifications” while reducing post-hire training costs and difficulties. On the other hand, the policies diversify recruitment channels by permitting special hires of highly skilled professionals, exploring part-time teacher systems, and specifying qualification requirements for specialized course teachers – measures that attract master craftsmen and technical experts to lead “dual-qualified” faculty development.

However, several issues persist in the implementation of these accreditation standards. On one hand, the multiple interpretations of the “dual-qualified” teacher concept (Zhu 2008; Liu 2012; Yu 2018; Xiao and Zhang 2012) have resulted in inconsistent and unclear certification criteria across different regions and institutions. A nationwide survey revealed significant disparities in how various institutions define “dual-qualified” status. Even after the Ministry of Education issued the Trial Standards for the Certification of “Dual-Qualified” Teachers in Vocational Education, the standards remain fragmented at local implementation levels due to their principle-based nature, making unified norms difficult to establish (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2022). This lack of standardization compromises both the fairness and authority of the accreditation system, failing to guarantee the actual competency levels of “dual-qualified” teachers. On the other hand, vocational institutions in China’s central and western regions struggle to meet the recruitment requirement of “three or more years of enterprise experience” for specialized course teachers due to limited corporate resources in these areas.

Therefore, it is recommended to further improve the national-level certification system for “dual-qualified” teachers by fine-tuning the accreditation standards. A nationwide third-party certification committee may be set up to evaluate highly “dual-qualified” teachers, ensuring that all regions implement certification procedures that meet or exceed national benchmarks, thereby guaranteeing that vocational education faculty truly attain the “dual-qualified” standard. For central and western regions with limited corporate resources, targeted recruitment policies should be implemented, including special hiring programs that provide housing subsidies and preferential treatment in professional title evaluations for teachers working at vocational institutions in these areas.

5.2 School-Enterprise Collaboration to Enhance Teachers’ “Dual Competencies”

Research findings indicate that China has placed significant emphasis in recent years on improving the practical teaching capabilities of highly “dual-qualified” teachers through industry-education integration. Policy documents require specialized course teachers at vocational schools to participate in enterprise practice or training base activities for at least one month annually through various formats, and mandate the establishment of 100 national-level enterprise practice bases along with mobile practice stations in enterprises. These measures aim to address the training dilemma of insufficient practical experience among teachers, aligning with academic calls to strengthen teachers’ enterprise practice and construct school-enterprise collaborative cultivation mechanisms for “dual-qualified” teachers (Wang and Shi 2018; Peng and Peng 2020). Despite policy encouragement for school-enterprise collaboration in teacher development, enterprises demonstrate insufficient participation motivation due to unclear delineation of their rights, responsibilities, and benefits in jointly cultivating “dual-qualified” teachers. In implementing teacher enterprise practice requirements, many schools engage in superficial compliance. As scholars note, the quality of teacher enterprise practice largely depends on corporate support, yet in reality, enterprises show limited enthusiasm for teacher training due to difficulties in obtaining direct benefits. Consequently, much teacher enterprise practice has degenerated into nominal attachment systems, failing to provide access to core technologies or deliver substantive improvement (Hao 2024). Furthermore, while policies stipulate school-enterprise co-development of vocational teacher training curricula, in practice, most industry-education integration projects remain confined to joint construction of training bases, lacking deeper collaboration in areas like technological R&D and curriculum development.

The key to addressing these challenges lies in stimulating corporate engagement. Enterprises’ willingness to participate in teacher development is constrained by unclear cost-benefit mechanisms. We recommend implementing policy instruments such as tax incentives and industry-education integration enterprise certification to enhance motivation. An enterprise certification system for industry-education integration should be established, with teacher training participation as a key evaluation metric. Certified enterprises should receive preferential policies including project application support and financing assistance. Furthermore, third-party organizations like industry associations and vocational education groups should serve as intermediaries to build multi-stakeholder platforms for teacher enterprise practice, while strengthening supervision and evaluation of these practical experiences.

5.3 Establishing a Supportive System for Teachers’ Continuous Professional Improvement

Research findings indicate that policies have gradually formed a post-service professional development mechanism for vocational college teachers, providing systematic support that includes degree advancement programs, targeted training, implementation of rotation training systems, and the establishment of teaching innovation teams and master teacher studios. The cultivation of high-level “dual-qualified” teachers depends not only on entry requirements but more crucially on lifelong career development and support (Peng and Peng 2020). The policies have created a top-level design spanning post-service training, degree advancement, and professional development pathways, which helps streamline teachers’ career progression, enhances the appeal of vocational teaching positions, and promotes sustainable competency development.

While the framework for teachers’ post-service improvement and evaluation systems has begun to take shape, several operational challenges persist. In terms of teacher training, the policy mandates for innovative training methods and targeted professional development remain inadequately implemented. Most training content fails to align with industrial technological advancements, resulting in low adoption rates of new technologies and processes. Training methodologies remain predominantly theoretical with limited practical components, exhibiting a singular approach that lacks hands-on operational elements. Furthermore, the evaluation of highly “dual-qualified” teachers disproportionately emphasizes quantitative metrics such as certification credentials and academic research outputs, while undervaluing the enhancement of practical teaching competencies. Career advancement opportunities for technically-skilled instructors require further expansion (Xu 2023). Additionally, the collaboration among diverse evaluation stakeholders remains insufficient, with notably limited participation from industry enterprises in assessing highly “dual-qualified” teachers. To address these issues, we recommend: (1) Reforming the professional title evaluation system by establishing teaching assessment standards tailored to vocational education characteristics, incorporating enterprise practice achievements and technical competition mentoring as core evaluation metrics; (2) Developing phased and categorized professional pathways for highly “dual-qualified” teachers, with customized training programs designed according to the developmental stages of novice teachers, core faculty, and program leaders, thereby transitioning from standardized training to personalized, practice-oriented approaches; and (3) Implementing an “evaluation-feedback-development” closed-loop mechanism through training effectiveness assessments, job performance evaluations, and developmental potential analysis to establish a tracking-based, individualized professional development system that facilitates genuine spiral progression and sustainable competency enhancement for “dual-qualified” teachers.

5.4 Research Limitations and Future Prospects

This study has several limitations. First, as it relies solely on policy text analysis without field investigations, it lacks empirical observation of policy implementation effectiveness and cannot fully capture the complex circumstances of policy execution. Second, the research scope is confined to national-level policy documents and does not account for practical variations across different regions and types of institutions. Future research could incorporate empirical methods to conduct in-depth investigations into policy implementation across various regions and institution types, examining both outcomes and regional disparities to further validate and enrich this study’s findings. By combining policy analysis with empirical research, we can continue to explore effective pathways for developing “dual-qualified” teaching faculty, thereby promoting ongoing innovation and refinement in both theory and practice for vocational education’s “dual-qualified” teacher development.