How does the revision of the Vocational Education Law break the "ceiling" of academic qualifications
Experts suggest appropriate development of higher vocational education at undergraduate and graduate levels
Our reporter Pu Xiaolei
The State Council executive meeting held on March 24 passed the "Vocational Education Law of the People's Republic of China (Revised Draft)", which aims to promote the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation, support social forces to run vocational schools, and promote the integration of vocational education and general education academic achievements. Recognition and so on have been stipulated.
The meeting decided to submit the draft to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation.
Zhou Hongyu, member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vice chairman of the Chinese Education Society, and dean of the Yangtze River Education Research Institute, said in an interview with the reporter of the Rule of Law Daily on April 10 that accelerating the development of modern vocational education is a major strategy made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. The deployment is of great significance for the in-depth implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, the creation of greater talent dividends, and the acceleration of transformation, structural adjustment, and upgrading.
"The revision of the Vocational Education Law is an objective requirement to promote the improvement of workers' quality, adapt to the new situation and new tasks, and is an urgent need to solve many practical problems in current vocational education." Zhou Hongyu said.
Qi Zhanyong, a professor at the School of Education of Shaanxi Normal University, believes that the revised draft focuses on many major practical issues facing the development of vocational education in our country, hits the key issues of vocational education, and has a very strong realistic pertinence.
At the same time, the revised draft is also forward-looking, pointing out the direction of the construction of the vocational education system, the implementation focus of vocational education, the responsibilities and obligations of related entities, and the construction content of the guarantee system, etc., leaving a place for the follow-up reform of vocational education. Relatively sufficient development space.
The social recognition of vocational education has increased significantly
The Ministry of Education recently issued the "Professional Catalogue of Vocational Education (2021)".
The new version of the "Catalogue" sets a total of 19 majors, 97 majors, and 1349 majors, including 358 secondary vocational majors, 744 higher vocational specialties, and 247 higher vocational undergraduate majors.
At present, vocational schools across the country offer more than 1,300 majors, covering all fields of the national economy, with more than 100,000 majors, and cultivating about 10 million high-quality technical and technical talents every year.
In fields such as modern manufacturing, strategic emerging industries and modern service industries, more than 70% of the new front-line employees are graduates from vocational colleges, and the social recognition of vocational education has increased significantly.
However, compared with the trend of a significant increase in the social recognition of vocational education, the current vocational education system is obviously lagging behind.
Li Shengrui, deputy to the National People’s Congress and operator of China Aviation Development Shenyang Liming Aviation Engine Co., Ltd., believes that a complete higher vocational education system should consist of graduate, undergraduate, and junior colleges. However, in my country, higher vocational education is currently at the "diploma level." .
"In fact, the level of technical skills covered by higher vocational education, such as high-end CNC machine tools, intelligent equipment, digital production lines, and many other international cutting-edge technologies, even exceeds the level of graduate education." Li Shengrui said.
The shortcoming of vocational education at the "undergraduate level" is also a problem to be solved in this revision of the Vocational Education Law.
In December 2019, the Ministry of Education publicly solicited opinions on the revised draft of the Vocational Education Law (Draft for Solicitation of Comments).
The reporter noted that the revised draft for the first time put forward the term "vocational colleges".
The Ministry of Education pointed out that in order to implement the positioning of type education, the concept of vocational colleges should be used to replace the concept of higher vocational schools.
Vocational colleges and universities correspond to ordinary colleges and universities, including junior college and undergraduate level.
According to the above regulations, vocational higher education will be on the same level as general higher education, and vocational education will also train its own undergraduates.
"We have changed from a country with large population resources to a country with human resources, and we are moving from a country with human resources to a country with human resources. In order to highlight the important role of vocational education in building a country with human resources, it is necessary to appropriately develop higher vocational education at the undergraduate and graduate level and improve Vocational education system." Zhou Hongyu said.
Illegal or banned by the industry in school-enterprise cooperation
The integration of production and education and school-enterprise cooperation are the basic modes of vocational education, the inherent requirements for cultivating high-quality laborers and technical talents, and the key to running vocational education.
But for a long time, the ability of vocational schools to serve the society has been weak, which has become an obvious shortcoming in the development of vocational education.
The "2018 National Higher Vocational Colleges' Ability to Adapt to Social Needs Evaluation Report" released by the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences in 2019 shows that the development and service capabilities of some higher vocational colleges are still weak.
The annual government purchase service payment for 400 colleges and universities is less than 10,000 yuan, the annual technical service payment for 300 colleges and universities is less than 10,000 yuan, and the accumulated vertical scientific research funds of nearly 450 colleges and universities are less than 50,000 yuan for three years. More than 500 colleges and universities have not received funds for horizontal technical services for three years.
Qin Tao, an associate professor at the School of Law of East China University of Science and Technology, believes that the professional setting of vocational schools cannot meet the needs of enterprises. A very important reason is that the school lacks a benign interaction with the enterprise. As a result, the students trained by the vocational school cannot adapt to the operation and development of the enterprise.
In addition to the "internal cause" of the school's unreasonable professional setting, the "external cause" of the irregular training outside the school cannot be ignored.
Bohai Polytechnic Vocational School’s junior college students were assigned to "play as ghosts" in Happy Valley. Hundreds of students from Shandong Liaocheng University were forcibly sent to Kunshan Konka Electronics Company for internships. The daily working hours reached 13 hours, without internships. Can't get a diploma...In recent years, irregular off-campus training has been exposed by the media many times.
Qi Zhanyong believes that the main reason for the problems in school-enterprise cooperation is that the relevant laws and regulations are not perfect. "Because the relevant administrative regulations are too principled, abstract, and lack operability, the rights and interests of relevant stakeholders in school-enterprise cooperation are unclear, and the protection The mechanism urgently needs to be standardized, which has caused many problems in school-enterprise cooperation."
It is worth noting that the revised draft for comments has made a number of provisions for school-enterprise cooperation.
For example, it is clear that if the lawful rights and interests of the educated are violated in the school-enterprise cooperation, the competent department shall order corrections. If the circumstances are serious, the industry may be prohibited from entering; if there are illegal gains, the illegal gains shall be confiscated, and more than 10,000 yuan may be imposed.20 A fine of less than 10,000 yuan; if a crime is constituted, the judicial organ shall pursue criminal responsibility in accordance with the law.
Teacher Training Should Realize the Interoperability of Enterprise Colleges
In the past few years, many colleagues of Li Yang, a teacher at a vocational school in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, have left.
"The lack of opportunities for training and continuing education, low wages and lack of space for development are the main reasons why young teachers leave vocational schools." Li Yang said.
The problems faced by the construction of vocational school teachers are not only “inability to retain”, but also “bringing in”-among the recruited teachers, there are very few talents with both theoretical and practical abilities.
“Those who teach from companies have poor academic qualifications, and their knowledge system is relatively backward, and they cannot convert practical experience into theoretical knowledge. College graduates who are teachers of vocational schools, although their academic qualifications meet the requirements, lack practical experience and the content they speak It's not'grounded' enough," Qin Tao said.
Zhou Hongyu pointed out that the construction of the teaching team is a weak link in current vocational education. To perfect the modern vocational education system, this problem must be solved in earnest.
The reporter noticed that the revised draft for comments has set up a chapter "Teachers and Educators of Vocational Education", and made detailed regulations on the training and competence requirements of teachers in vocational schools.
For example, Article 39 of the revised draft for comments provides:
The state establishes a vocational education teacher training system.
The state establishes vocational education teacher training and training bases to strengthen professional teacher training; encourages and supports local people’s governments to set up special vocational and technical teachers’ colleges, encourages higher education institutions to set up vocational education teacher education majors; encourages industry enterprises to participate in vocational education teacher training and training Training.
Enterprises with integration of production and education and enterprises above designated size shall arrange a certain proportion of posts and accept the practice of teachers from vocational schools and vocational training institutions.
"To build a faculty that meets the requirements of modern vocational education development, it is necessary to open up two channels, enterprises and colleges. Enterprise talents can teach technology and college teachers can talk about theory. The two can be connected, and theory and practice should be integrated as much as possible. Together." Zhou Hongyu said.