In a classroom in Dortmund-based vocational training center, Berufsfoerderungswerk (BFW), 12 Chinese teenagers, working in pairs, are assembling pneumatic cylinders while discussing with their partners in Sichuan dialect.

The teenagers, mostly aged 17, are students of the Pujiang vocational Secondary School in Pujiang county of Southwest China's Sichuan province. Financed partly by the county government, they are on a study tour from July 2 to 21 to get a glimpse of Germany's vocational training savvy, with courses at BFW as main activities.

Back home, they are among the first 28 Chinese students in Pujiang to receive a German-style duel system of vocational education on a demonstration project jointly initiated by the German Chambers of Commerce (AHK) in Shanghai, the Pujiang government and a technical college in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.