Over the past few decades, China’s attempts to address its persistent skills shortage have led to a growing prioritisation of reforms and upgrades to the country’s VET sector, with the aim of producing the ‘craftsmen of the nation’. This paper presents new findings on young people’s experiences of the VET reform. It focuses on the ‘order model’ programme, one of the most widely implemented employer engagement schemes in the Chinese construction sector. This study investigates how China’s skill formation systems operate and are being reformed without sufficient support from institutions. The findings show a wealth of good practice is taking place within the context of the VET reform, resulting in young people being better prepared for work. However, the VET reform was found to only impact a small number of students at the college. Employers involved in the programme prioritised their own immediate short-term needs, which left students in a state of increased precarity along their paths into the world of work. Despite being confident in their skills, these young people still felt a need to ‘upgrade’ to an academic degree as the academic-focused and credential-driven social sentiments still imposed as the cultural arbitrary even in the context of VET reform. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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