In Western countries, the modern apprenticeship system has evolved into a variety of cultivation forms in the process of educational practice, showing a characteristic of institutional diversity that can be explained by the theory of institutional complementarity. Firstly, this paper constitutes an analytical framework of institutional complementarity based on three elements, namely, “regulative”, “normative” and “cultural-cognitive” elements. Under this framework, this paper conducts a comparative analysis of the differences and rules of the institutional complementarity between German modern apprenticeship system and Chinese order-class mode. The results show that: (1) two major forms of institutional complementarity are mutual reinforcement and mutual compensation, and a developmental system tends to take the form of mutual reinforcement while a balanced system tends to adopt mutual compensation; (2) a virtuous circle of institutional complementarity is inseparable from quality assurance; (3) the core of institutional complementarity lies in providing good career prospects; (4) the complementarity also exists in systems of quantity function and that of quality function. Finally, this paper proposes policy recommendations on how to establish a modern apprenticeship in developing countries based on the analysis of policy complementarity.