China boosts vocational education via deepening integration with industry

BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- One after another, giant cargo ships arrive and depart, while containers are loaded and unloaded at Qingdao Port. It is also a practical site of operation for students at Qingdao Harbor Vocational and Technical College.

This college in east China's Shandong Province has nurtured over 70,000 high-quality graduates for the country's port and shipping industry in the 49 years since its establishment.

This achievement is mainly attributed to its teaching approach of "moving the classroom to the port."

To cultivate highly skilled talents for the country's drive to modernize the industrial system, China has been pushing to integrate vocational education with corporation and industry development in recent years.

In a pivotal Party resolution adopted last month, building a vocational education system that is well-integrated with industry was once again emphasized. Currently, there are over 11,000 vocational institutions in China.

Encouraging enterprises to participate in all aspects of vocational education is conducive to focusing the teaching on industrial needs and serving the development of the modern industrial system, said Xing Hui, head of the Vocational Education Research Center of the National Academy of Education Administration.

In the course of its development, Qingdao Harbor Vocational and Technical College has been taking advantage of both its location in the Lingshan Bay area of the Shandong Peninsula and its cooperation with port management companies.

Video signals of production and maritime radar signals from Qingdao Port are connected to the teaching area, allowing students to understand the port operation processes while on campus, said Gao Juan, a teacher specializing in port machinery and intelligent control at the college.

"Students were excited to see the 32-tonne forklifts, 55-tonne tire cranes and other large equipment recently provided by Rizhao Port of the Shandong Port Group, which is worth over 6 million yuan (about 843,000 U.S. dollars)," said another teacher Wang Liguo.

"Graduates from the college can be found at major coastal and riverside ports across the country," said Chen Jiwei, vice president of the college. Among the 298 employees at Qingdao Port's automated terminal, over 62 percent are graduates of this college.

Corporations also serve as teacher pools for vocational schools. The college has signed 179 model engineers and master craftsmen to lecture at least 40 hours a year. More than 90 percent of the port and shipping majors teachers at the college have practical working experience in the field.

Vocational education plays an increasingly prominent role in serving the upgrading of China's traditional industries and fostering new quality productive forces.

China's vocational education system cultivates about 10 million high-quality technical personnel every year. In areas including modern manufacturing, strategic emerging industries and modern service, over 70 percent of newly added on-site employees are vocational college graduates.

Located in Deyang, a major equipment manufacturing base in southwest China's Sichuan Province, Sichuan Polytechnic University has been cooperating with leading enterprises such as Erzhong (Deyang) Heavy Equipment Co., Ltd. and Dongfang Electric Corporation of the city's manufacturing enterprise cluster.

"Compared to scientific research in universities, innovation in vocational schools develops frontline technologies for new quality productive forces," said Chen Xiaoci, who heads a lab at the university that boasts more than 20 patents since its establishment in 2019.