This study examines the relationship between higher vocational colleges and local economies in China against the backdrop of educational structural reforms. It seeks to create a system for measuring how well vocational education aligns with regional economic needs by using mixed research methods. Findings point to disparities between provinces and early-stage coordination challenges, especially in Sichuan Province. Recommendations include addressing provincial disparities, reforming policies for better collaboration, updating vocational education to meet economic changes, and altering perceptions of vocational education to support sustainable economic development.

Higher vocational education has entered the 21st century, after more than ten years of demonstration school construction, the construction of backbone schools and the current construction of high-quality schools and so on, the connotative development has made great progress. However, in terms of cultural education, the characteristics of school-enterprise cooperation in vocational education emphasize the zero-distance docking with enterprises, so as to create a “professional person” with workplace consciousness, workplace ability and professional quality. As a result, the sustainable development ability of the students cultivated by the higher vocational colleges lags far behind the students of the undergraduate colleges in 3-5 years, which is generally manifested as the lack of sustainability and the insufficient follow-up space for the development. One of the root causes of the problem lies in the lack of excellent traditional culture education in higher vocational education. This paper aims to explore the important role of the education mechanism and system construction of excellent traditional culture on the education quality of higher vocational colleges, in order to promote the connotation construction of higher.