BEIJING - China had a total of about 11,700 vocational schools nationwide, with around 9.3 million fresh students enrolled and 26.9 million students at school last year, the Ministry of Education said Tuesday.

Figures from the ministry showed that among the schools, 10,300 were secondary vocational schools and 1,418 were advanced educational schools.

The average employment rate of secondary vocational school students has exceeded 95 percent for 10 consecutive years, and that of advanced vocational school students was more than 90 percent six months after graduation.

As a key source of human resources for China's economic development, vocational schools have contributed to more than 70 percent of the fresh workforce in the country's manufacturing and emerging industries, according to the ministry.

To integrate industry and education, as well as schools and enterprises, China has built 56 supervisory committees for vocational education and 1,400 vocational education groups, with over 30,000 participating companies.