How to build an "upgraded version" of vocational education
The Chinese Vocational School, which was born in 1918, is the first college named "professional" in modern China.
In a hundred years, after several twists and turns, finally settled in Nanjing, which became the Nanjing Polytechnic University of Industry today.
As the first public undergraduate vocational college in the country, Nanjing University of Industry and Technology has conducted a vocational undergraduate pilot program for two years. What experience has it gained, what problems have it encountered, and what thoughts it has?
Reporter conducted an interview.
From "Limited Ability" to "Invisible Champion"
In the eyes of the “famous students”, Wang Hao, who is in a vocational school, is undoubtedly the “hidden champion” among his friends.
Wang Hao, 24 this year, won the first prize in the National Skills Competition and is now a university teacher, and his students have also won national awards.
Many of his old classmates are still struggling on the single-plank bridge for postgraduate entrance examinations.
Wang Hao's "counter-attack" road began with the enrollment for the high school entrance examination eight years ago.
"At the time, my parents asked me to apply for a regular high school and then go to college. An older brother of mine who had studied in a vocational school thought that my grades had always been medium and it was difficult to get into a good university. It would be better to go to a vocational school to learn a skill." Wang Hao said that since he was a child he likes to play with small appliances such as radios, and he also feels that he prefers to do it, so he chose to apply for a vocational high school.
In the vocational high school, Wang Hao studied mechatronics, which is an extension of his interest.
In three years, he participated in the Jiangsu Provincial Skills Competition and won the second prize, and from this he successfully entered the Nanjing Industrial Vocational and Technical College (now Nanjing Industrial Vocational and Technical University) to continue his studies, his major is still the electrical automation that he likes.
After entering the university, Wang Hao again spent almost all of his energy on preparing for the competition, except for class and sleeping, almost in the training center and laboratory.
The effort paid off. He successfully participated in the National Skills Competition and won the first prize. When he graduated, he stayed at school as an assistant experimenter and became the "hidden champion" in the mouth of his friends.
The experience of becoming a college teacher in his early 20s has made Wang Hao and his relatives and friends re-acquainted with vocational education—a road to becoming a talent that is rarely seen every day.
Song Zenglu, his former teacher and teacher of the School of Electrical Engineering of Nanjing Polytechnic University, felt the most about Wang Hao's "counter-attack" growth.
The first problem encountered by this Ph.D. returned to Japan after he was introduced to Nanjing Polytechnic University as a talent was how to break the deep sense of inferiority in the students' hearts.
"Under the current environment, studying for vocational high schools, colleges and even vocational undergraduates often stems from'poor grades' and poor test scores. Students often come to the school with the label of'losers'." Song Zenglu said, students They are smart and have strong hands-on skills, but they are used to talking about "limited ability" and "I can't do it".
In order to solve the problem of confidence, Song Zenglu gave students three chapters, prohibiting saying no or impossible, and encouraging them to ask questions, even simple basic questions, "just start from scratch and accumulate confidence little by little."
As Song Zenglu envisioned, after fixing the shortcoming of lack of confidence, the results were immediate.
Within two years, his team won three first prizes in national skill competitions, and won the gold medal in the "Internet +" National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in 2020.
Song Zenglu's approach reflects the helplessness that vocational education still faces.
Like Song Zenglu, many vocational college teachers are looking forward to the early realization of the goal of “significantly increasing the social status of technical and technical talents by 2035” proposed in the "Opinions", so that society will no longer look at vocational education wearing colored glasses. The label of "losers" is no longer given to students in vocational education, and students no longer need to grow up against the trend, but can grow up with the trend.
"Under the guidance of unscientific and irrational educational evaluations such as "only scores" and "only advancement", education has become "involved", and the education anxiety of society, parents and students has become more and more serious, and there is a lack of correct understanding of vocational education. Every young person should have the opportunity to shine, and our society as a whole must support and encourage the growth of vocational college students.” said Wu Xuemin, secretary of the Party Committee of Nanjing University of Industry and Technology.
Demand for vocational undergraduates has entered an explosive period
In recent years, intelligent and digital transformation has accelerated in enterprises across the country.
Machines are getting smarter and technology is iterating faster and faster, but suitable talents are getting harder and harder to find.
Liang Yansong, General Manager of Nanjing Branch of Beijing Jingdiao Technology Group and Dean of Nangong-Beijing Jingdiao College, feels deeply about this: "With the intelligent transformation, most of the work of the'assembly line' is completed by robots, and the employees are more responsible afterwards. End-to-end monitoring, programming and front-end inspection and maintenance. In the past, we recruited many junior college students to operate the machine by hand. Now that the equipment has been upgraded, the hands-on operation has become the second priority. Therefore, more professional undergraduate talents with knowledge reserves are needed." Liang Yansong said.
"Vocational undergraduate education is not an extended version of vocational college education, nor is it a replica of ordinary undergraduate education, but an undergraduate level of vocational education." said Xie Yonghua, deputy secretary of the party committee and principal of Nanjing Polytechnic University.
"Vocational undergraduate education is to meet the urgent needs of industrial transformation and upgrading, and the result of higher levels of vocational education." Wu Xuemin believes that compared with vocational colleges, vocational undergraduate education shows four more: a deeper theoretical foundation, a more complete knowledge system, More complex professional capabilities, more solid accumulation of technical skills.
In order to "snap up" the more urgently needed professional undergraduate talents, on June 2, 2020, Beijing Jingdiao Technology Group and Nanjing Vocational and Technical University of Industry launched a strategic cooperation in production, education and research to establish Nangong-Beijing Jingdiao College. The two sides carried out more in-depth Cooperate and jointly formulate talent training programs.
So, after the establishment of this college, how many suitable talents can it train?
Is it enough?
"Definitely not enough." Liang Yansong said, Nangong-Beijing Jingdiao College has 300 students per session, and Beijing Jingdiao Group sells about 10,000 equipment each year, even if it is calculated based on every two equipment with one technician. Every year, about 5,000 vocational undergraduate talents are needed to adapt.
This is also releasing a clear signal: in the manufacturing industry that China is good at, the junior college students trained under the traditional vocational education model can no longer fully meet the demand for technical skills and talents for industrial upgrading, and companies will recruit more theoretical knowledge and more solid, Vocational undergraduate graduates with stronger technological innovation capabilities.
However, due to the pilot training of vocational undergraduates in China in 2019, coupled with the four-year training cycle, it is difficult to meet the needs of enterprises in the short term even if they "place orders" now.
The newly issued "Opinions" propose that by 2025, the enrollment scale of vocational undergraduate education shall not be less than 10% of the enrollment scale of higher vocational education.
The Ministry of Education recently released the "Statistical Communiqué on the Development of National Education in 2020", which shows that in 2020, 5.24 million students will be enrolled in higher vocational education across the country.
Based on this estimate, the enrollment of vocational undergraduate education may reach more than 500,000 in four years, which will also alleviate the predicament of the shortage of talents in industrial upgrading to a certain extent.
Create an expert-type double-teacher team
Zhao Rongxing, who holds the titles of National Technical Expert, Jiangsu Craftsman, and National CNC Skill Master, is the youngest "master" of Nanjing University of Industry and Technology.
He is good at thinking and has been studying CNC technology after graduating from technical secondary school. In 2014, he won the National CNC Skills Competition Championship.
After entering the Technician Academy as a teacher, he can not only introduce the new knowledge, new technology, and new methods of the enterprise into the classroom, but also propose a variety of solutions for the enterprise.
In order to bring in Zhao Rongxing, Nanjing University of Industry and Technology not only offered 700,000 yuan in relocation allowance and 500,000 yuan in annual salary, but also established a "skilled master studio" for him.
At present, there are 8 members of the studio team, including 3 national technical experts and 4 doctoral students.
Regarding the introduction of talents, Nanjing University of Industry and Technology can be described as "big-handed" in recent years.
Through the implementation of the strategy of “strengthening the school with talents”, many high-level talents such as national famous teachers, national technical experts, provincial famous teachers, provincial craftsmen, technical directors of well-known enterprises, professional leaders, doctors and so on have been attracted to teach in the school.
"So far, the school has 11'skill master studios', and 92.29% of teachers with'dual teacher quality' have reached 92.29%." Xie Yonghua said, accelerating the development of modern vocational education and training thousands of high-quality Skilled talents are inseparable from the new era, high-quality, double-qualified vocational education teacher team.
The quality of teachers in vocational colleges, especially "dual-qualified" teachers, is related to the quality of vocational education talents.
"To do a good job in vocational undergraduate education, we must continue to optimize the faculty of professional and concurrently integrated teachers, build a craftsman spirit that strives for excellence in professional quality, have research capabilities and deep accumulation in technical theory, and have the ability to use engineering methods to solve first-line complexities in practice. An expert double-teacher team with problem abilities. It is also necessary to strengthen the construction of part-time teachers, continue to expand the part-time teachers of enterprises, form a school-enterprise mixed teacher team, and bring the new technology and technology of the enterprise to the talent training process." Wu Xuemin Say.
Regarding the “stable development of vocational undergraduate education and the establishment of vocational undergraduate schools and majors with high standards” proposed in the "Opinions", Wu Xuemin believes that the three macro dimensions of education, occupation and undergraduate attributes should be promoted: Implement Lide Shuren into the whole process of school education, teaching and talent training; adhere to professional attributes, strengthen the direction of vocational education, realize the transformation and promotion of training positioning to high-level technical skills, and the transformation and promotion of training mode to school-enterprise integration. The faculty is transformed to an expert-type dual teacher, and its service capability is transformed to a leading-type. Adhering to the attributes of undergraduate is to improve the overall level of undergraduate education and achieve the three upgrades of academic, basic, and innovative."
(Our reporter Zhang Chunlei, Su Yan and Liu already can)