AI as skills governance

Reconfiguring authority and ethics in China’s TVET reform

Bibliographic Data

ID21262768
AuthorsGuoying Lu (0009-0000-1381-3084, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Sirui Han (0000-0001-7303-0671, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, corresponding author), Yike Guo (0000-0002-3075-2161, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Year2026
Volume5
Issue1
Publication date2026-06-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Review of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2731-5835 • E-ISSN: 2731-5835
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s44216-026-00082-y
OpenAlexW7163865356
LanguageEN
References cited28

Artificial intelligence has become increasingly embedded in technical and vocational education and training systems, reshaping not only teaching and learning practices but also the governance of skills formation. In contexts where vocational education is closely linked to labour-market regulation and national development strategies, AI-related platforms and data infrastructures play a growing role in defining competencies, evaluating performance, and steering institutional behaviour. In practice, however, many current reforms operate through digitalisation, data integration, and platformization that lay the institutional groundwork for more intensive AI governance. This article approaches AI-driven TVET reform as a transformation of skills governance rather than a technological upgrade. Drawing on theories of algorithmic governance, political economy, and sociotechnical systems, it develops a governance-oriented analytical framework that links ethical concerns to institutional arrangements. The framework is applied to China’s Smart Vocational Education initiative, understood as a platformized and data-driven reform assemblage through which AI governance is being built. The analysis shows that AI-related platforms function as governance infrastructures that coordinate vocational education with industrial priorities through data-driven standards, metrics, and decision systems. In the Chinese case, these governance effects arise not only from fully fledged AI applications but also from the platformization, standardisation, and data centralisation that make algorithmic intervention scalable. While these arrangements enhance system-level coordination and efficiency, they also generate significant tensions related to learner autonomy, teacher agency, data governance, transparency, and structural inequality across institutions and regions. Ethical challenges therefore arise not as abstract risks but as concrete governance problems embedded in platform design and responsibility allocation. By reframing AI in TVET as a problem of skills governance, this study contributes a context-sensitive framework for analysing the institutional and ethical implications of AI-driven reform. The findings from the Chinese case offer broader insights for policymakers and researchers seeking to balance efficiency, accountability, and educational values as AI becomes increasingly infrastructural to vocational education systems

Centralisation · Cognitive reframing · Corporate governance · Lifelong learning · Sociotechnical system · Technocracy · Vocational education · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality

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