Chinese lawmakers on Friday lauded a new system whereby the government issues reports in response to inquiries, calling for it to become a standard practice.
Minister of Education Yuan Guiren briefed the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) about the development of vocational education on Wednesday at a bi-monthly legislative session. His report was a followup to the Standing Committee's survey of vocational education in 2015.
From March to May, Zhang Dejiang, chair of the NPC Standing Committee, led a vocational education investigation team, and discovered many problems in the practice, including poor public recognition and erratic funding.
At the bi-monthly session in June, the top legislature reviewed the survey and questioned officials including vice premier Liu Yandong, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei and Yuan.
Shen Chunyao, a member of the NPC Standing Committee speaking at a panel discussion on Friday morning, heralded such interaction between the legislature and government as constructive.
The minister's report on Wednesday informed lawmakers of the concrete actions taken by the government in response to the survey and inquiry, Shen said.
"This was a good example of how the legislature should exercise its power to supervise government work and law enforcement. We should keep doing it on other issues," he said.
Normally the government authors a feedback report on issues raised by the legislature in an inquiry or survey of the enforcement of certain laws. Occasionally, it sends officials to brief lawmakers, like Yuan did on Wednesday.
Liu Zhenwei, another member of the NPC Standing Committee, suggested that the government make it a standard procedure to send officials to brief lawmakers for better legislature-administration communications.
Ma Wen, another lawmaker, also proposed that the legislature should be briefed again, some time later, since issues discovered usually need time to be solved.
"Most of the issues the NPC Standing Committee looked into were important and complicated. We should design a reasonable timetable for the government to respond to the problems and give us feedback," she said.
According to Yuan, China's vocational education received more government resources after last year's survey.
By December, all provincial governments had budgets for each student at vocational colleges and allocated the money to colleges. The amount will be at least 12,000 yuan (about 1,850 U.S. dollars) in 2017.
The central government expects a similar policy for students at secondary vocational schools, 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have already done so.
At Friday's discussions, lawmakers urged the government to pay more attention to large secondary vocational school.
They also called on the government and industries to improve welfare and offer more career opportunities for skilled workers and technicians.
