People's Daily Review: Implementing Key Tasks of Reform and Cultivating More Great Country Craftsman Education | Professions | Craftsmen

Recently, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued a notice on accelerating the reform of modern vocational education system construction, which includes 11 key tasks for the reform of modern vocational education system construction, and clarified the specific construction goals, quantitative indicators, division of responsibilities, and assessment management of each task. The Notice also requires all regions to actively organize relevant government departments, schools, enterprises, and industrial parks to undertake key tasks, strengthen provincial coordination, and incorporate the construction of key tasks into the overall deployment of deepening the reform of the modern vocational education system.

At the end of last year, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Modern Vocational Education System Construction", which clarified the major institutional design and policy measures for deepening vocational education reform. The release of the key tasks of this reform is a further implementation of the Opinions, which is of great significance for orderly and effective promotion of the construction and reform of the modern vocational education system, cultivating more craftsmen and high skilled talents from major countries, and strengthening the service support of vocational education for social and economic development.

In recent years, a series of heavyweight policy measures have been introduced one after another, ushering in a spring of development for vocational education. However, due to various reasons, the construction of the vocational education system is not perfect enough, and there are still problems such as insufficient motivation for enterprises to participate in education, and uneven quality of education and talent cultivation. The most outstanding performance is that the quality of talent cultivation has not yet adapted to the urgent demand for high-quality skilled talents in technological development and industrial upgrading and transformation, and the support for serving important national strategies, solving practical problems for enterprises, and serving the high-quality development of industries and regional economies is not strong. At the employment level, it manifests as the interweaving of a shortage of highly skilled talents and a shortage of employment.

How to solve these problems requires standing at the height of building an education powerhouse, cultivating more national strategic talents such as craftsmen and high skilled talents, better serving and supporting major national strategies, and better serving regional development to promote high-quality development of vocational education. This requires respecting the development laws of vocational education, adhering to systematic efforts, strengthening policy coordination and cooperation, and forming a joint force in promoting the integration of vocational education, industry and education, and science and education. At the same time, we must adhere to a problem oriented approach, focus on important links, weak links, and difficult problems, and strive to solve the shortcomings that hinder the development of vocational education, effectively improving the quality and ability of vocational education talent cultivation.

The release of 11 key reform tasks reflects these requirements. Vocational education is the education closely related to economic and social development, and this particularity determines that it must deeply integrate into regional, industrial, and industry development, adapt to market demand, and match with industrial structure. The integration of industry and education is the source and key driving force for the high-quality development of vocational education. Key tasks are proposed to build a municipal industry education consortium, an industry industry education integration community, and an open regional industry education integration practice center. These all aim to build a good ecosystem with sufficient institutional supply, strong condition guarantee, and deep integration of industry and education through central and local interaction, regional linkage, and systematic coordination of government, industry, enterprises, and schools, serving the cultivation of high-quality talents.

Focusing on key industries and areas to better serve the national development strategy is a clear direction for implementing key tasks. The Notice proposes that the first batch of layouts will be carried out in five fields: advanced rail transit equipment, aerospace equipment, ship and ocean engineering equipment, new materials, and weapons industry. In a planned manner, key industries and areas such as the new generation information technology industry, high-end CNC machine tools and robots, high-end instruments, energy electronics, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, power equipment, agricultural machinery equipment, biopharmaceuticals, and high-performance medical devices will be guided to build a number of national cross regional industry industry education integration communities, and drive the construction of a number of regional industry education integration communities that empower regional economic development and serve local characteristic industries.

The acceleration of industrial transformation and upgrading has highlighted the bottleneck problem, and the expectations of economic and social development for vocational education are increasing. It is urgent for vocational education on the front line of production to cultivate more high-quality technical and skilled talents to solve the bottleneck problem. This requires key efforts and breakthroughs in modern manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, and modern service industries. By cultivating a large number of high-quality skilled talents with outstanding technological innovation capabilities and good at solving complex engineering problems, we can effectively enhance the country's core competitiveness and scientific and technological innovation capabilities.

To implement the key tasks of reform and focus on details, it is necessary to enhance the key educational capabilities of vocational schools, which is a prerequisite for the output of high-quality skilled talents. The improvement of educational capacity involves various aspects such as professional construction, curriculum construction, textbook construction, and practical training base construction. The Notice also sets specific goals in the construction of vocational education professional teaching resource libraries, demonstration virtual simulation training bases, first-class core courses, and high-quality teaching materials. For example, building a batch of national resource libraries, driving the construction of about 1000 regional resource libraries in local areas, constructing about 1000 first-class core courses in national vocational education, and constructing about 2000 high-quality teaching materials for the integration of industry and education in national vocational education. Timely introduction of new methods, technologies, processes, and standards into educational and teaching practices, leading the "classroom reform" of vocational education, is clearly an inevitable requirement for improving the quality and appropriateness of skilled talent cultivation.