Vocational undergraduate education, as a critical vehicle for achieving effective skills supply, plays an indispensable role in facilitating China's industrial upgrading. Grounded in human capital theory and new vocationalism, this study examines the allocation of human capital and the skill development of students. The findings reveal that vocational undergraduate education inherently supports China's industrial upgrading. However, in practice, there is an insufficient scale of high-skilled human capital at the macro level and suboptimal allocation efficiency at the micro level. Therefore, based on these insights, the following policy recommendations are proposed to enhance the role of vocational undergraduate education in supporting China's industrial upgrading: deepen the integration of industry and education, improve the vocational education system; optimize skills cultivation to enhance the quality of high-skilled talent training; strengthen lifelong education to broaden career development opportunities for high-skilled talents; expand development space and establish a treatment guarantee mechanism for high-skilled talents.

Vocational undergraduate education;China's industrial upgrading;High-skilled talents;Human capital theory;New vocationalism

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This work is supported by the Shenzhen Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (SZ2024C030) and the Shenzhen Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (SZ2022C007).

DOI： https://doi.org/10.62639/sspjiess11.20250203

Published： 2025