Vocational schools force students to "intern" at factories

Many students of China’s vocational schools are being forced to work assembly lines as interns for manufactuers in order to graduate, The Wall Street Journal reported. China’s Ministry of Education, which said in 2010 that vocational schools must supply students to fill labor shortages, said there are at least eight million such student interns each year. Migrant workers remain drawn to coastal factories’ higher wages despite a government push to direct industries inland. That leaves vocational schools to funnel many of their 29.34 million students to internships at undermanned factories that have little to do with students’ majors and often violate labor rules.