Since the reform and opening up, there have been nearly 200 million migrant workers who played important roles in economic and social development flooding into the cities. Nowadays, modern manufacture shows a trend developing with high-tech, which requires migrant workers to acquire high level of technic and skills so that to master new skills quickly. In addition, frequently updating of products and equipment also requires migrant workers to have great abilities of adaption and creation. There is no doubt that those changes put forward higher requirement for migrant workers’ quality. The quality of migrant workers is directly related to their competitiveness and salary in the labor market. It is easier for high quality migrant workers to get a good job and achieve higher salary. But for low quality migrant workers, getting a good job is hard, they must do dirty and dangerous work with low salary. The latest research shows that the vast majority of migrant workers have low level of education, and they are lack of vocational skill, which lead them to concentrate on simple labor department and manual labor department. Therefore, integrating the whole social education resources and provide migrant workers scientific and cultural knowledge and offer them skills training is an urgent historical and strategic task which can enhance their quality.
There are two approaches to achieve this goal. The first is internal approach which means that migrant workers must to change their mind from being closet. The second is external approach which means governments must to create an equality and tolerance environment by strengthen the system construction.
Internal approach: change migrant workers' mind from being closet
According to China Employment Website, high school and above level of education of labor demand has accounted for 60.2% in 2009, while the demand of junior high school and below the level of education has just accounted for 39.8%. Obviously, migrant workers are at a disadvantage competing with other workers under the circumstance of large demand of high quality workers.
There exists a serious problem that migrant workers are too closed to involve in city activities. If they want to improve their quality, it’s important for them to change their mind of being closet and involve in city activities organized by enterprises, communities, and other social welfare groups because diverse activities will provide them plentiful opportunities to express their personality. Furthermore, they should merge into mainstream culture in their thought, their concept and their action, which help them to make a transformation from "migrant worker" to "citizen".
External approach: induce migrant workers of being closet
The process of civilization of migrant workers will be hindered by some institutional barriers, such as resident registration, social security, and housing systems. A society with equality and tolerance will foster cultural self-confidence and cultural self-consciousness of every group in it. However, the existing urban- rural dual registration system becomes a threshold of migrant workers integrating into society, and the critical reason by which many new generation migrant workers feel pessimistic about the future and then muddle along into the day. Therefore, it is the priority for the government to accelerate the reform of the household registration system and other closely relative systems, so that the migrant workers enjoy equal treatment with citizens in aspects of employment and entrepreneurship services, social security, housing, education and so on. At the time, all kinds of social organization of media must bring into play the role of directing public opinions, promoting a positive image of migrant workers, advocate the concept of equality and harmony, and create a social and cultural environment that conducive to the growth and development of the new generation of migrant workers.
Governments should pay great intention on vocational education to improve migrant workers’ quality, and it’s necessary for them to advocate enterprises, schools and other social institutions to join them to induce migrant workers of being closet. First, to respect and cultivate migrant workers’ subject consciousness is important. Then, induce migrant workers to take part in culture activities so that they can have great fun as well as achieve personal progress.