Vocational education, the form of education most closely aligned with the working world, has become a strategic choice for countries worldwide. This chapter provides an overview of vocational education in China. This chapter first selects representative data and excellence indicators to illustrate the basic features and developmental trends of secondary vocational education in China compared to major global counterparts. Secondly, it shares the Ministry of Education’s efforts in promoting the digitization and standardization of Vocational education and local governments’ initiatives in fostering industry-education integration. The compelling cases are presented to show vocational education and its roles in fostering personal growth and societal advancement. The chapter also shares narratives of exemplary “dual qualified” teachers and their contributions to teaching, research, and service. In addition, this chapter reviews the recent research trends of vocational education research in China in the past 5 years and the key policies shaping China’s vocational education. Overall, the Chinese government has established a relatively comprehensive vocational education system. This chapter also discusses some challenges, such as funding constraints, teacher shortages and qualifications, the property rights of digital resources, infrastructure needs for industry-education integration, and the stigma of vocational education.

STEM education is closely related to national development strategies, attracting attention from most countries and regions. With 30 years of development, STEM education has been implemented in K-16 educational systems around the world. This chapter briefly presents the development of STEM education in China at both secondary and tertiary levels. Chapter sections include highlighting data, relevant national policies, and latest research. This chapter also proposes excellence indicators for STEM education and applies them to measure the performances of STEM education in 10 selected countries. The best practices and inspiring stories sections share the Chinese experience of tackling the global challenge of attracting young talented researchers. It shows that secondary STEM education focuses on integrating new technology with maker education and actively utilizes new media and intelligent technology. Meanwhile, university STEM programs encourage young researchers to engage in innovative STEM research. Keywords STEM education STEM graduates STEM talents development STEM education policies STEM research literature

Achieving many of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals requires the active contribution of skilled engineers. Globally, however, there appears to be a mismatch between the sustainable competencies that engineering graduates possess and those required by industry. Closing this gap requires a reliable and valid means of establishing which competencies are of greatest importance to engineering practitioners. In this research, we developed a model of generic engineering competency and designed a scale comprising 55 skills in total. This instrument was then used to survey two samples of engineering graduates working in the Chinese industry, with 746 in the first round of surveys, and 1183 in the second. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), seven subscales were extracted from the data: (1) leadership, (2) engineering design, (3) professionalism, (4) problem solving, (5) lifelong learning, (6) technical theory, and (7) communication. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that the total number of generic engineering competencies was represented by a second-order, single-factor model that adequately fitted the data. Further, the Cronbach’s alpha values and composite reliability of the scale indicate its reliability. Overall, the evidence shows that the instrument offers a valid and reliable means of researching and assessing engineering education practices.

As generative artificial intelligence agents become embedded in higher education, understanding students' continuance intention (CUI) is critical. To address the underexplored mechanisms regarding how campus AI environments are associated with user trust, this study adopts the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to investigate a dual-path trust mechanism: AI System-like Trust (AST) and AI Human-like Trust (AHT). Through a hybrid methodology combining Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and non-parametric Random Forest classification, this study analyzes university students' CUI toward campus GenAI. The findings demonstrate that Information Quality (IQ) and Service Quality (SQ) are positively associated with both AST and AHT pathways. Conversely, Facilitating Conditions (FC) and Performance Expectancy (PE) do not exhibit independent linear associations within the simultaneous structural estimation. Rather than indicating an empirical absence of functional value, this configuration uncovers a holistic evaluation mechanism among digital natives, where basic functional affordances operate as baseline hygiene constraints whose variance is subsumed by quality attributes. Notably, while both AST and AHT exert concurrently significant linear driving forces on CUI within the structural path framework, the exploratory machine learning analysis clarifies that under recursive partitioning, AHT exhibits a higher relative predictive weight. Furthermore, a localized asymmetry operates within the linear mediation channels, where SQ selectively mobilizes AHT over AST to drive continuous usage. Post-hoc inspections imply that PE operates through a non-linear threshold dynamic, transitioning into an active predictive catalyst primarily within the positive spectrum of user perception. Our study contributes to campus AI services evaluation by highlighting that within the contemporary GenAI ecosystem, students' evaluative focus prioritizes relational and epistemic quality over functional accessibility. Campus application administrators and developers are advised to prioritize content rigor and responsive, empathetic interaction design to cultivate the relational trust relevant for sustained engagement.