Decentralization: Withdrawal of the State and Varieties of Vocational Schools in China

Challenging the prevailing scholarly portrayal of Chinese vocational schools as uniform “quasi-labor agencies,” this chapter argues that the profound institutional diversity observed across the system is a direct consequence of state withdrawal and administrative decentralization since the mid-1980s. As central authority receded and fiscal and managerial responsibilities shifted to local governments and schools themselves, vocational institutions were forced to navigate divergent resource environments and labor market demands. Drawing on an original dataset of 25 vocational schools and 21 partner firms in Guangdong Province, the chapter identifies four distinct models of skill development: the high-performance model, the industry-focused model, the local market-oriented model, and the labor agency model. These configurations reflect how schools—shaped by varying levels of state support, local industrial structures, historical legacies, and ownership status—have adapted differently to the vacuum left by retreating state authority. By tracing the link between decentralization and institutional heterogeneity, the chapter reframes China’s VET landscape not as a monolithic failure, but as a fragmented field of uneven adaptation to systemic decentralization reforms by the state since the mid-1980s.