From the Tianjin Initiative to the Tianjin Consensus: Jointly Charting a Blueprint for High-Quality Development of Vocational Education

1 Manifesting a Shared Imperative

As a robust bridge that links education and industry, vocational education carries the collective aspirations of all humanity. It is a powerful engine for high-quality economic and social development, the principal channel for skills reinvention, a fundamental pathway to improving people’s livelihoods, a critical arena for cultivating new quality productive forces, and a vital force serving economic and social progress while advancing the modernization dream. In short, vocational education not only illuminates individual lives but also lights the way forward for all nations. In his 2022 congratulatory letter to the World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference, President Xi Jinping stated, “Vocational education is closely connected with economic and social development. It is of great significance for promoting employment and entrepreneurship, supporting economic and social advancement, and enhancing people’s well-being.” This important statement underscores the foundational and pivotal role of vocational education in social and economic development. The Tianjin Consensus stresses that, in the face of ongoing technological innovation, industrial upgrading and labour-market transformation, all countries should commit to building a closer, fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system, while continuously strengthening global exchange and cooperation in this field (Lin 2025). Consequently, a deep understanding of the universal need for vocational education demands that our vision be extended to the broader canvas of human society.

First, on a global scale, vocational education possesses an irreplaceable competitive edge in fostering employment and entrepreneurship. The current outlook for youth employment remains challenging. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024, in 2023 global youth unemployment stood at 64.9 million, corresponding to an unemployment rate of 13 percent. This figure not only is lower than the pre-pandemic rate of 13.8 percent recorded in 2019, but also represents the lowest level in 15 years. The report notes that today’s young people are the most highly educated generation in history, yet the pressure to secure employment remains intense, and obtaining a decent and stable job is more difficult than ever. One key reason for persistently high youth unemployment is the structural mismatch between the qualifications young people acquire and the skills demanded by the contemporary labour market. Indeed, in 2023 one in five young people were not in employment, education or training. Practical and effective vocational education is precisely the potent remedy: by delivering learning experiences closely aligned with the world of work, it equips young people with the practical skills required for future workplaces, enhances their employability, and facilitates both high-quality employment and self-employment (Hongbo 2025).

Second, in bolstering economic and social development, vocational education is pivotal for revitalizing economies and advancing industrial upgrading amid sluggish global recovery, geopolitical tensions and shrinking external demand. As reaffirmed in the Tianjin Consensus, ministers from participating countries unanimously underscored the need to enhance productivity through skills training, catalyse industrial upgrading and accelerate global economic recovery. Vocational education not only cultivates highly skilled talent to satisfy the human-capital requirements of industrial upgrading and emerging industries, thereby sustaining sound economic growth; but also fosters international capacity cooperation as it facilitates skills exchange and talent development, injecting new impetus into global economic integration.

Third, vocational education’s ultimate purpose is to enhance people’s sense of happiness and fulfillment. Skills are the key that can change destinies and unlock boundless possibilities for a better life. In the global development of vocational education, attention must be paid not only to cultivating workers’ technical and vocational competencies but also to fostering their all-round development. By providing diverse educational resources and flexible learning pathways, vocational education enables people from all walks of life to strengthen their occupational skills, integrate into society, and ultimately realize their own worth. The Tianjin Consensus stresses that skills training should give every individual, especially vulnerable groups, the chance to alter their destiny, enhance their capacity for employment and entrepreneurship, escape poverty, and secure robust support for lifelong career development, thereby achieving self-fulfillment. In China, vocational education has served as a vanguard in the battle against poverty. More than 70 percent of students in vocational colleges come from rural areas, and millions of families have realized the dream of having their first-ever university graduate, which is epitomized in the statement, “One person receives vocational education, one gains employment, and one family is lifted out of poverty.” Similarly, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has formulated the Career Guidance for Refugees, equipping refugees with vocational skills to secure employment and integrate into society. This is an eloquent testament to vocational education’s positive role in advancing human well-being.

From the Tianjin Initiative’s declaration that vocational education is value-creating education to the Tianjin Consensus’s assertion that skills are the hard currency of the labour market, vocational education has gained new-found confidence in its own development. It has become a decisive driver of industrial upgrading, a catalyst for economic diversification, and a key factor in enhancing a nation’s international competitiveness.

Amid globalization, vocational education has been elevated to a national strategic priority in many countries because of its pivotal role in spurring economic growth and strengthening social inclusion. The International Labour Organization’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 underscores that technological innovation and industrial transformation can only be addressed through skills enhancement and occupational transitions. Cost-benefit analyses show that vocational education, with its favourable input-output ratio, delivers a clear advantage in absorbing high-quality labour. OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) research further demonstrates that establishing a comprehensive modern vocational education system can markedly reduce youth unemployment and effectively resolve structural labour shortages (Research Group of the Chinese National Institute of Education Sciences 2025).

Globally, although vocational education exhibits marked diversity, its overriding objective is to achieve precise alignment between educational provision and industry demand. Germany’s dual system embeds enterprises deeply in curriculum design and apprentice training, ensuring a tight match between instructional content and occupational requirements. Australia’s Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutes focus on building lifelong learning systems and offering in-service personnel a wide array of upskilling pathways. Guided by an industry-oriented philosophy, Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) concentrates on cultivating internationally competitive technical talent. These cases demonstrate that establishing a stable yet flexible institutional framework supported by modularized curricula is a pivotal route to enhancing the adaptability of vocational education.

The vital role of vocational education in advancing social equity has gained broad international recognition. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) research shows that providing vocational training to vulnerable groups, migrants and refugees not only improves their employability but also strengthens social cohesion. Canada’s vocational education programs for Indigenous peoples, Finland’s skills-training projects targeting adolescents from low-income households, and numerous African countries’ transnational TVET collaborations in renewable energy all exemplify the practical application of inclusive development. These initiatives are fully aligned with the principles of equity, inclusiveness and sustainability championed by the Tianjin Consensus.

2 Revealing the Laws of Development

Vocational education is a complex educational activity whose essence is to cultivate comprehensive professional qualities and action-oriented competencies centred on skills. It is inherently occupational, social, and practical. Grasping its laws is therefore pivotal to achieving high-quality development. In 2022, the newly revised “Vocational Education Law of the People’s Republic of China” set out “seven upholds” which covered political orientation, educational philosophy, school-running models, competency cultivation, employment orientation, practice-based teaching and individualized instruction. The White Paper on the Development of Vocational Education in China, issued at the 2022 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference, articulated “six upholds”: government leadership with pluralistic provision; moral cultivation integrated with technical training; integration of production and education, and school-enterprise cooperation; practice-oriented learning that strengthens capability; market orientation that enhances employment; and provision for all with tailored teaching. The Report on the Development of Vocational Education in China released at the 2024 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference distilled these into “three upholds”, focusing on the educational orientation of integrating moral and technical cultivation, the collaborative school-running model, and a quality-assurance system anchored in standards.

The evolution of these “upholds” reflects not only the continuity and stability of vocational education policy but also a deepening understanding of its inherent laws; they must be steadfastly maintained and continuously enriched. The Tianjin Consensus calls for the persistent improvement of the modern vocational education system, enhanced adaptability and innovation capacity, strengthened training in green skills, and the elevation of workers’ comprehensive qualities and employability so as to lay a solid foundation for improving people’s well-being and promoting sustainable social and economic development. It further stresses the need to persist in driving international and domestic capacity cooperation through innovation, deepening the integration of education and industry, and continuously upgrading the core capacities of vocational education to provide robust human-capital support for the social and economic development of all countries (Zheng and Xiaokun 2025).

First, vocational education must deepen the integration of education with industry and foster robust school-enterprise collaboration. Vocational education flourishes alongside industry; industry, in turn, thrives on vocational education. Integration entails shaping education to industry’s needs and reciprocally fueling industry through education. Such integration is a complementary, mutually embedded process in which education and industry grow symbiotically and empower each other. It constitutes the fundamental model for delivering vocational education and is pivotal to its success. This principle underscores the inseparable link between vocational education and industrial development, insisting that education must keep pace with market demand, resonate in real time with industrial evolution, and achieve coordinated growth, thereby continually enhancing the core capabilities of vocational education.

Second, vocational education must remain unequivocally people-centred. Mastery of a skill is not merely a prerequisite for survival and personal development; it is the decisive factor that enables individuals to excel throughout their careers. With a skill in hand, one enjoys lifelong security. Therefore, moral cultivation must be integrated with technical training, and theory must be fused with practice. Before one learns to do, one learns to be; and before one learns to be, one learns to be virtuous. Vocational education must always place character education at the forefront while fostering students’ comprehensive qualities. This principle underscores that, in cultivating highly skilled and technically proficient talent, vocational education must simultaneously advance the all-round development of every learner.

Third, vocational education must perfect quality standards. While expanding enrolment, it must simultaneously deepen its intrinsic quality and make excellence the engine of high-quality development. Continuous refinement of assessment and monitoring framework which is aligned with each country’s labour-market needs is essential to guarantee the calibre of skilled graduates and to satisfy society’s demand for highly competent technical and professional talent.

Systematic cross-national comparison reveals common regularities in three dimensions: the stability of institutional frameworks, the depth of industry-education integration, and the effectiveness of quality assurance. As stated in UNESCO’s Global TVET Report 2023, establishing stable and effective policy architecture and sustaining it over the long term constitute the decisive factor for the enduring development of vocational education. Countries such as Germany and Switzerland, which operate dual-system models, rely on statutory guarantees and sustained corporate investment to create tight, durable links between education and industry. In the Nordic region, Finland and Norway value personalized learning pathways and lifelong-learning systems to meet the diverse needs of different population groups and to supply vocational-skills curricula that are precisely matched with those needs.

As the pivotal mechanism for advancing high-quality vocational education, industry-education integration hinges on school-enterprise collaboration to refine talent-cultivation systems. OECD research shows that when enterprises are deeply involved in curriculum design and instructional delivery, students’ employability is significantly enhanced, and technological innovation and knowledge renewal are accelerated. The Netherlands’ Regional Training Centers (ROCs), for example, develop curricula in line with local industrial clusters, ensuring that content precisely tracks shifting market demands. This model has been promoted to numerous Southeast Asian countries and widely applied to the transformation and upgrading of both manufacturing and service sectors.

Quality-assurance systems are universally regarded as central to international vocational education. The European Union’s European Qualifications Framework (EQF) establishes standardized and mutually recognized mechanisms for certifying vocational competencies across member states, thereby facilitating the cross-border mobility of skilled labour. Similarly, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) initiative seeks to create regional skills standards and to intensify cooperation among member economies in vocational education. These international experiences demonstrate that high-quality vocational education must simultaneously address local needs and adhere to global norms, thereby enhancing graduates’ international competitiveness and employability. The Tianjin Consensus’s call to strengthen adaptability and innovation is fully aligned with current international trends and carries strong regional demonstrative value.

3 Reflecting International Experience

Skills are the common language that connects all humanity. They are a universally recognized form of value and competence. On the broad stage of global vocational education development, every country has accumulated rich experience that contributes to a shared blueprint for a better future. At the 2022 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference, fourteen parallel forums were convened around such themes as “Digital Empowerment and Transformation & Upgrading” “Green Technologies and Sustainable Development” “Shared Destiny and Win-Win Cooperation” “Articulation of General and Vocational Education and Lifelong Learning” “Skills for Poverty Reduction and Equity Promotion” “Industry-Education Integration and Innovative Development” and “Science Education and Engineering Education”, providing a platform for nations to share achievements and lessons learned.

The 2024 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference, under the theme “Innovation Empowers the Future, Skills Enlighten New Lives” featured six parallel sessions: “Industry-Education Integration for High-Quality Vocational Education Development” “Vocational Education for Global Sustainable Development” “Global Strategies and Practices for High-Skilled Talent Development” “Innovative Practices in the Professional Development of TVET Teachers” “Integration of Vocational Education and Lifelong Learning” and “Building Quality-Assurance Systems for Vocational Education”. These sessions displayed a focus on the convergent trends shaping vocational education worldwide. The changes of the parallel-session topics signal that global vocational education is moving toward clearer priorities and more precisely defined development directions. The Tianjin Consensus explicitly calls for advancing dialogue and cooperation, upholding mutual learning and joint construction with shared benefits, strengthening international exchange and collaboration, establishing mechanisms for sharing experience and achievements in high-skilled talent development, jointly launching cooperative training programs, building mutual-recognition frameworks for vocational qualifications and skill levels, and, together, raising the overall level and quality of vocational education in every country.

First, developed countries demonstrate a pronounced capacity for innovation and pragmatism in vocational education. Germany’s “dual system” is widely regarded as the archetype where companies are deeply embedded in the training process, so that students acquire theoretical knowledge at school while receiving hands-on instruction in the workplace at the same time. This tightly coupled mechanism ensures a seamless interface between education and industry. Statistics show that roughly 60 percent of German adolescents opt for the vocational track, a choice that underpins the formidable competitiveness of German industry by furnishing it with a steady supply of highly skilled labour.

Second, developing countries are actively forging vocational-education pathways tailored to their national circumstances. Ethiopia exemplifies this trend: the government has accorded high priority to TVET, promulgating a succession of policies to advance the sector. Over recent years, the system has expanded rapidly, generating a sizeable pool of skilled labour for social and economic development. Data indicates a steady annual rise in the number of vocational institutions and a corresponding increase in enrolment, thereby furnishing a robust human-capital foundation for Ethiopia’s industrialization drive.

Third, China’s achievements in vocational education have drawn worldwide attention. In recent years, the Chinese government has attached high strategic importance to vocational education, introducing a succession of policy measures to advance its reform and development (Jiening 2025). Both the scale and the quality of vocational education have risen markedly, producing a large cohort of highly skilled technical and professional talent for the nation’s social and economic progress. In particular, with regard to industry-education integration, Chinese vocational education has pioneered a new collaborative model of government, school, industry, enterprise and community. By jointly establishing training bases and implementing order-based programs, it has achieved deep, synergetic alignment between education and industry.

It is therefore evident that the 2024 World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference served as a more sharply focused showcase of global achievements and future trajectories in vocational education. The conference delved into such pressing issues as industry-education integration, high-skilled talent cultivation, and the professional development of TVET teachers. The choice of topics not only mirrors the shared concerns of the global vocational education community but also provides every nation with a platform for exchange and mutual learning.

Throughout the evolution of global vocational education, countries have generated a wealth of exemplary practices, ranging from institutional frameworks and curriculum design to quality-assurance mechanisms. It provides an important reference for international cooperation and the exchange of experience. Germany’s dual system foregrounds the leading role of enterprises, ensuring that the cultivation of occupational competencies is precisely aligned with industry needs through collaborative school-enterprise training. Canadian community colleges, anchored in regional economic structures, employ modular pedagogical approaches that effectively cushion the shocks generated by dynamic shifts in the labour market.

Numerous joint studies by ILO and UNESCO have identified three defining features of an effective modern vocational education system. First, curricula must incorporate a dynamic adjustment mechanism to keep pace with industrial restructuring. Second, a systematic vocational certification framework must be established and aligned with internationally recognized skill standards. Third, a stable school-enterprise cooperation platform must be created to provide students with immersive work placements. These elements have been fully implemented in developed countries and possess broad applicability in developing nations. Vietnam, for example, has partnered with the Republic of Korea, Singapore and others to introduce internationally benchmarked programs in fields such as electronics manufacturing and hospitality management, thereby markedly enhancing graduates’ employability.

Contemporary international vocational education is witnessing a new development trend. The construction of transnational cooperation networks and the completion of regional skills-certification systems have become pivotal issues. The European Union’s European Skills Agenda seeks to achieve efficient resource allocation among member states by means of joint teacher-training programs and student-exchange schemes, thereby strengthening educational synergy. The African Union, through the Pan-African TVET Initiative, is promoting balanced vocational-skills development across the continent. These global initiatives not only enhance the overall quality of occupational-capability cultivation but also provide practical models and experiential reference for multilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the Tianjin Consensus.

4 Embodying the Features of the Times

Amid the tide of global development, vocational education keeps pace with the era and exhibits distinctive contemporary characteristics that underpin its sustained prosperity and innovation. At present, vocational education confronts multiple challenges and opportunities from trends of industrial upgrading toward high-end, intelligent, green, and personalized production. These trends not only reshape the global landscape of vocational education but also chart its future trajectory. The Tianjin Consensus explicitly states that technical and vocational education, by deploying new technologies, methodologies, and standards, plays a pivotal role in fostering inclusive employment, driving sustainable economic growth, and enhancing societal resilience. It calls for joint initiatives to strengthen youth competencies in green and digital skills and for integration of resource-efficient course modules into educational evaluation criteria.

First, in the age of intelligence, vocational education is achieving deep integration with advanced technologies, thereby empowering its own innovative development. Driven by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, vocational education is accelerating its transition toward intelligent transformation. Data indicates that more than 60 percent of vocational education institutions worldwide are experimenting with the incorporation of AI technologies into both teaching and management. Through intelligent tutoring systems, personalized learning-path planning and similar tools, they have markedly raised instructional efficiency and learning outcomes. For example, Swedish vocational colleges employ big-data analytics to monitor student learning behaviour and push precisely tailored resources, simultaneously improving learner satisfaction and boosting graduate employment rates. Intelligence is not only reshaping pedagogical methods across global vocational schools but also fostering seamless alignment between education and industry demand, thereby furnishing robust support for the cultivation of high-skilled talent required by future societies (Yu et al. 2025).

Second, vocational education is aligning with the leading edge of industry, elevating the calibre of technical and vocational training amid industrial upgrading. As national industrial structures undergo continuous upgrading and advancement, demand for highly skilled personnel has become increasingly urgent. In response, vocational education systems worldwide are establishing programs in such fields as smart manufacturing, new-energy technologies and biomedicine, targeting the cultivation of high-end technical expertise to satisfy market needs. Through deeper school-enterprise collaboration and the joint construction of training bases, vocational education is effectively interfacing with industrial frontiers, affording students expanded practical opportunities and strengthening their employability.

Third, against the backdrop of accelerating global climate change and heightened environmental awareness, “green” vocational education has emerged as a defining trend. Vocational colleges worldwide are embedding sustainability principles into their curricula and introducing programs in environmental technologies, sustainable-development management and related fields to cultivate talent equipped with ecological consciousness and green competencies. UNESCO’s Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) (2022–2029), issued in 2021, designates green TVET as a priority area. It calls for developing the skills required for an inclusive and sustainable economy, and specifically identifies those needed for the digital and green economic transition, encompassing the advancement of STEM skills, green skills, sustainability-related capabilities, entrepreneurial skills and 21st-century skills. Greening is thus not only an expression of environmental responsibility, but also an imperative for vocational education seeking to align with future economic development.

Fourth, international cooperation is expanding the horizons of vocational education. In an increasingly interconnected world, cross-border collaboration in TVET is growing ever more intensive. Through international exchange programs, overseas internships and dual-degree courses, students broaden their global outlook and strengthen their intercultural competence. Globalization not only facilitates the sharing of educational resources but also offers learners more diverse pathways for development, thereby enhancing the international competitiveness of vocational education.

Propelled by the tide of globalization, vocational education is manifesting a distinctive pattern in which technology, industry and society are integrally intertwined. Analyses of worldwide data by ILO and OECD reveal that, under the impetus of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things, roughly 70 percent of vocational education entities are actively revising their curricula to meet the demands of both the ongoing digital transition and long-term new-occupation requirements. Finland exemplifies this response as its vocational institutions have deployed virtual-reality (VR) and augmented-reality (AR) technologies to create immersive training environments, yielding marked improvements in instructional effectiveness while significantly reducing training costs and eliminating safety risks.

Within the framework of global climate governance, green-skills training is gradually becoming a core component of international vocational education systems. According to UNESCO’s Research Report on Vocational Education and Training (VET) and the Green Transition, green skills encompass both the operational techniques of environmental technologies and interdisciplinary, integrated knowledge systems such as sustainable production management and circular-economy design. Germany, the Netherlands and other countries have taken the lead in embedding the principles of sustainable development into their vocational education legislation, strengthening curricular content in carbon-emission accounting, energy-efficiency improvement and related areas, thereby cultivating interdisciplinary talent that combines professional expertise with a strong sense of social responsibility.

Internationalization in vocational education continues to advance, with transnational faculty exchanges, student mobility and joint curriculum development becoming key modes of cooperation. The “Erasmus+” programme has created cross-border learning platforms for European vocational students, enhancing their intercultural communication skills in multicultural settings. Through its Skills Development Working Group, APEC fosters policy convergence among member economies. In the field of vocational education, diverse international exchanges and collaborations enhance students’ cross-cultural adaptability, move global vocational standards toward greater convergence, and create favorable conditions for the mutual recognition of skills and the mobility of personnel.

5 Showcasing China’s Wisdom

In promoting exchanges and mutual learning among world civilizations and in facilitating the building of a global community with a shared future for mankind, vocational education stands out for its distinct professionalism. In this domain, China not only pursues its own development but also participates in global governance of vocational education through multiple channels, actively contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the world and fully demonstrating the country’s unique insights and practical achievements. The Tianjin Consensus translates the specific objectives of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and UNESCO’s Education 2030 Framework for Action into shared understanding, joint actions, and measurable outcomes in technical and vocational education across nations, pooling the experience and wisdom of countries worldwide. Bearing humanity’s future at heart and people’s well-being in mind, China is both an advocate and a practitioner.

From the Tianjin Initiative to the Tianjin Consensus, China has proceeded from shared needs, embraced a shared philosophy, pursued a shared vision, followed a shared guideline, and acted upon a shared course of action, actively participating in the formulation of international rules and standards for vocational education while honouring its commitments to assist other developing countries. This embodies the responsibility, mission, and commitment incumbent upon China as a major vocational education nation. Its growing appeal has widened the “concentric circles” and broadened the “circle of friends”, markedly enhancing its contribution and making the pathway of skills ever more expansive.

Looking ahead, China’s vocational education will continue to uphold the principles, consensus, and actions of openness, cooperation, and mutual benefit, deepen its intrinsic development, and elevate its international influence. Through skills exchange, it will build bridges for a community with a shared future for mankind; by actively engaging in global vocational education governance, it will enhance the world’s governance capacity in the field. It will advance the internationalization of Chinese vocational education standards to serve the sustainable social and economic development of all countries and contribute still greater Chinese wisdom and Chinese strength to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.