Lately, six agencies, including the Ministry of Education ("MOE"), have jointly released the Measures for Promoting Cooperation between Vocational Schools and Enterprises (the "Measures"), with effect from March 1, 2018.
According to the Measures, vocational schools and enterprises may, according to actualities, collaborate on talents development, technical innovation, employment and entrepreneurship in seven forms, such as "launching a collaboration system of apprentices depending on enterprises' demands for talents in various positions, to recruit students together and have them trained jointly by both schools and enterprises under the mode of combining working and learning". Further, the Measures state that all places are encouraged to select social investors in the competitive way to develop on their own or help enterprises and schools develop public service projects, such as bases for innovation and startups; financial institutions are encouraged to have prudent risk management in compliance with laws and regulations, to give support of credit loans and financing to the cooperation between vocational schools and enterprises. Furthermore, the Measures provide that the reasonable costs relating to the obtaining of income and actually incurred by enterprises for receiving students to take part in internship programs, and the personnel education fund expenditures incurred by enterprises, are deductible from the taxable income.