Our reporter Yu Zhongning
What kind of vocational education should those rural children who cannot go to high school or university receive?
What role can rural education play in the process of rural revitalization?
Recently, at the "New Era Rural Education Revitalization Seminar" jointly organized by the 21st Century Education Research Institute and the Guangdong Times Public Welfare Foundation, many experts and practitioners in the education field have discussed rural education.
They believe that for those rural children who cannot go to high school or university, "as long as they are given appropriate and useful education, they can still have a happy life of their own."
Yang Dongping, a member of the National Education Advisory Committee and honorary chairman of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, believes that the goal of rural education should not be to train "small towns to be experts" and "second-rate robots", nor to provide blood transfusions for cities or universities. For students, rural education should pay special attention to cultivating students' core literacy and self-development ability.
He emphasized that rural education should serve the life-long development and happiness of rural students.
For a long time, my country’s rural basic education is basically a kind of education for entering higher education. The educational ideal of many rural teachers and students is to jump out of the farm and leave their hometowns.
But today's rural education needs to meet the different needs of entering a higher school, going to work in the city, and building a new countryside at the same time.
"At the end of the 1980s, our country carried out a huge comprehensive reform of rural education. Its core proposition was the'three education co-ordination' of general education, adult education, and vocational and technical education, emphasizing education and agriculture, science and technology, and rural areas. The integration of economic development. This is very much in line with the actual needs of rural economic and social development. Unfortunately, such a massive reform ended without a problem in the early 1990s, and the entire education was incorporated into the track of examination-oriented education and academic progress. This history is particularly worthy of reflection. Yes." Yang Dongping said.
For those rural children who fail to pass the high school entrance examination, after compulsory education is over, a realistic choice is: Should you choose a job and then be promoted, or bid farewell to school and enter the labor market?
In fact, the status quo of rural secondary vocational education is not optimistic, and many students who fail to pass the high school exam choose to go out to work.
At the seminar, the 21st Century Education Research Institute and Guangdong Times Public Welfare Foundation released the "New Observation on Rural Education-China Rural Education Development Report (2021)".
The "Report" pointed out that there are three main practical difficulties in the development of rural secondary vocational education under the background of rural revitalization: the development of rural secondary vocational education is "hollowed", the structure of supply and demand is imbalanced, and quality resources are scarce; "Professionalism" and "rural nature" have turned rural secondary vocational education into "progress education"; the development model is rigid and "involved", and there is a large gap in the quality of training to adapt to the development of local rural industries. On the other hand, , The talent training model is relatively simple, and the quality of talent training is poor.
How should rural secondary vocational education reform and improve its quality?
The "Report" pointed out that the development of rural secondary vocational education under the background of rural revitalization mainly has the following cracking paths: urban-rural integration helps improve the resilience of rural livelihoods; taking into account the educational needs of both employment and further education, the rural secondary vocational education Positioning is determined as the "professional development of multi-subjects serving". At the same time, it helps farmers grow into farmers in the new era required by the rural revitalization strategy in a short period of time. Finally, it is necessary to emphasize the value orientation of serving "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" in order to cultivate new types of farmers. Professional farmers, improving the skills of returning home entrepreneurs, etc. are their duties.
From the perspective of rural revitalization, future rural development needs diverse talents including agriculture, technology, marketing, finance, design, cultural tourism, and innovative communication.
For this reason, the "Report" suggests that the form of rural secondary vocational education should be enriched, and the supply of secondary vocational education can be increased through adult skills training and community education. Secondary vocational education can be extended to the fields, villages, towns and streets, and it can directly target the rural population. To further improve the overall quality of the rural population.
Zhu Qizhen, a professor at China Agricultural University, believes: “Vocational education in rural areas must adapt to the development of urbanization and industrialization at the same time. Many rural laborers still have to go to cities. The demand is very urgent."