Migrant workers in eastern China's Shanghai will benefit from the same training programs as residents do, said officials at the conclusion of an education symposium.

Shanghai is working to bring migrant workers from outside the city into its vocational education system, according to sources at a two-day international symposium on development of a lifelong education system and a society of learning concluded in Shanghai Thursday.

The sources said that the move will provide job skills training for Shanghai's estimated 3.8 million migrant workers.

Xie Maoshu, head of Shanghai Pudong Training School, said that since his school was founded four years ago, it has offered occupational training for a total of 5,000 migrant workers from rural areas, and many of them came from outside the city. The training ranged from basic computer knowledge, office automation to some other vocational skills.

Currently, the city has more than 3,300 training programs, which train 2.3 million people on vocational skills annually.

According to Hao Keming, head of a national research institute on education development, farmers having received various sorts of occupational training only accounted for 10 percent of total farmers in China.

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2004)