Statistics released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security show that 16,000 vocational schools have been set up in China with the investment of enterprises, individuals and other non-governmental institutions.

Earlier this year, the Labor and Social Security Bureau of Dongcheng (Eastern) District in Beijing designated 11 schools - out of 40 candidates - for vocational training of local laid-off workers and jobless people.

Xie Yuan, a labor official with the ministry, said re-employment is considered crucial to development and the country has mapped out a string of measures as part of a back-to-work program.

According to the Regulation on Unemployment Insurance enacted in 1999, all jobless people have a right to receive free vocational training and the fees will be paid by local governments in the form of subsidies.

To obtain these subsidies, however, schools must make sure that their training meets government standards.

For the time being, training pro-grams targeting the laid-off and jobless fall into two categories: those officially authorized to issue qualifications and those simply for short-term re-employment within a community.

In Beijing, the Dongcheng Accounting and Trade School beat other competitors to become a designated training school in the Eastern District responsible for the training of more than 5,000 unemployed.

School head Tian Maotan said, "China's vocational training market has been growing fast as more and more professions require job licenses."

"Given most of the jobless are poorly-educated and unskilled, their desire for training is fair strong," he added.

But despite the rosy market prospects, schools also find problems when they try to accelerate the program.

For example, most trainees can only receive short-term training which usually lasts no more than six months and school time is often too changeable to be arranged by the schools.

(eastday.com October 14, 2002)