It has become difficult for conventional higher vocational education to fulfill the needs of the digital era, and reforming the “three teachings” is now a crucial decision to promote the high-quality expansion of higher vocational education. Promoting the high-quality development of higher vocational education by adopting a practical approach to reforming the “Three Teachings” in the age of digitalization. In a composite system model, the sequence parameters for the higher vocational school subsystem are determined by the sequence parameters of the ‘Three Teachings’ reform. The TOPSIS method and Moran’s I were used to assess the rate of growth of China’s higher vocational school system to look into the main factors that have contributeds to the good development of higher vocational education in that nation. The results show that there is weak geographical clustering, with each region’s 2022 Moran’s I for the “Three Teachings” reform and the high-quality development of higher vocational education being just 0.1280. Moreover, Moran’s I show a general downward trend from 2013 to 2022, suggesting that challenges need to be addressed to keep improving higher vocational education in a top-notch way. The ‘Three Teachings’ reform strategy presented in this study may help further sustain the long-term, high-quality expansion of higher vocational education.