Recently, Liang Bin, a student of Xi'an Tourism Vocational Secondary School, changed his previous learning attitude and improved the efficiency of classes a lot. "I feel that I am 'the same' as the students who were admitted to xi'an No. 1 Middle School, and I also want to realize the value of my life through my own efforts." Liang Bin said. Recently, Xi'an City issued the "Xi'an Vocational Education "Famous Schools +" Implementation Plan " (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), Xi'an No. 1 Middle School and Xi'an Tourism Vocational School exclusive to the first batch of 15 pairs of "high-quality high school + secondary vocational school". The promulgation of the "Plan" has received widespread attention from the society, parents and students, and all parties expect the "Plan" to lead Xi'an vocational education through the deep waters of reform and create a good environment in which everyone strives to become a talent, everyone can become a talent, and everyone can give full play to their talents.
File photo (Li Dazhang/Photo)
Vocational education: Why is it at a "relative" development trough?
Starting from the Mawei Ship Politics School in Fujian and the school run by foreign affairs, vocational education started the earliest in the history of China's educational development. However, a set of data in recent years: in 2017, the enrollment of secondary vocational education was 5.8243 million, and the number of graduates in 2020 was 4.8487 million, and nearly 1 million secondary vocational students did not successfully complete their studies, showing the current situation that the development of vocational education is lagging behind.
The reason behind the formation of this situation, Guo Wei, deputy director of the Higher Education and Education Policy Research Center of the Shaanxi Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that on the one hand, because the inherent education of the Chinese people can achieve the concept of class transition, and in the college entrance examination system that realizes the selection of talents, a good ordinary high school is the main way to enter a good college, and the university admission is based on the score of batch admission, and the last batch is the selection of higher vocational schools, so it gives people a understanding: the students selected by higher vocational schools are the losers of the same generation in the college entrance examination competition. Higher vocational education is not good higher education. On the other hand, most of the secondary vocational schools are converted from weak high schools, there are inherent deficiencies, in addition, in the process of development, the government's investment in secondary vocational education is not as good as that of ordinary high schools, which further reduces the social recognition of secondary vocational education, and some middle vocational schools still have problems such as "empty, small, scattered, and weak". The low degree of social recognition of the quality of running the school, the serious shortage of high-level vocational schools to choose from, and the diversion of low-scoring students into secondary vocational schools after junior high school all make secondary vocational students synonymous with "poor students" at the high school stage in society, which has caused vocational education to not form an attractiveness for social recognition.
In fact, "the path of secondary vocational students is open." Ma Jun, a professor at Shaanxi Normal University, said. Guo Wei also believes that although the state is striving to build a modern vocational education system with vertical middle and high levels and horizontal vocational popularization, and is also designing vocational education college entrance examinations to open up vocational education and advancement paths, it is still in the stage of policy development.
"Famous Schools +": The "Integration Point" of Vocational Education Reform and Development?
Unlike general education, vocational education, as a special type of education, emphasizes the close integration of "need" and "demand", and pays more attention to the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation. At this stage, all localities are still in the process of exploring ways and accumulating experience on how to improve the quality of vocational education as a whole. The development model of "high-quality high school + secondary vocational school" proposed in the "Plan" is undoubtedly the structural reform and innovation of vocational education in Xi'an, and it is also an exploration of how to better improve the quality of secondary vocational education, promote the reform of "three teachings" of vocational education, and how to implement the construction of a number of outstanding secondary vocational schools and high-quality majors through mergers, cooperation, trusteeship, group schools and other measures.
For the "famous school +" school running model formulated in the "Plan", Guo Wei believes that this model is an innovative brand of Education in Xi'an, and after years of practical exploration, the effect of running a school has been continuously highlighted, and practice has proved that this concept, experience and model can be copied and promoted. Through the innovation of institutional mechanisms, the high-quality educational resources and management concepts of "famous schools" will be used for weak secondary vocational schools, promote the characteristics of secondary vocational schools, stimulate the vitality of secondary vocational schools, and have a positive role in promoting the healthy development of vocational education in the city.
In addition, transplanting this model to the vocational education "famous school +" project formed by vocational education "will effectively promote the reform of school classroom teaching, the construction of teacher teams and the life planning of students, and secondary vocational education and general high education will form a situation of two flowers and wonderful each." Liu Shen, vice president of Xi'an Tourism Vocational Secondary School, said.
At the same time, the strong addition of high-quality high schools is conducive to strengthening the quality of cultural basic courses of secondary vocational education. Cultural basic courses are the key to the development of secondary vocational education under the positioning of 'vocational basic education', and strengthening the study of cultural basic courses is one of the effective ways to enhance the competitiveness of secondary vocational students and maintain a roughly equivalent level of cultural foundation for secondary vocational school students and ordinary high school students.
As for whether the "high-quality high school + secondary vocational school" community can develop healthily, many teachers in the industry said that the key is to always grasp the characteristics of vocational education when formulating specific plans for the community, focusing on cultivating students' awareness of skills and hobbies and career planning.
Formation Type: How to Avoid the "Achilles Heel"?
The "Plan" gives three basic forms for the formation category of the first batch of high-quality high schools and secondary vocational schools in Xi'an: group schools, cooperative schools and entrusted management. Several types of models are in line with the national spirit of the government to deepen the reform of "decentralization and management of services", accelerate the transformation of functions, and transition from "running" vocational education to "management and service".
In fact, improving the image of vocational schools has always been a difficult point in the reform of vocational education, and the key to improving the image lies in the improvement of the quality of vocational education. It can be said that the formation of categories is closely related to the improvement of the quality of vocational education, and to a large extent has a key impact on the implementation effect of the reform and the implementation of the Plan. How do I optimize the composition of categories? Guo Wei believes that if secondary vocational schools are simply included in the overall management of high-quality ordinary high school education groups, and secondary vocational schools are entrusted to high-quality high school management or high school principals serve as principals of secondary vocational schools at the same time, it will be difficult to promote the strengthening of the "professional" type characteristics of secondary vocational schools, which may make secondary vocational schools "universal", and give society the ambiguity of the homogeneity of secondary vocational schools and high school advancement.
As a senior expert who has been engaged in vocational education research for a long time, Guo Wei analyzed: the training goals of ordinary high schools and secondary vocational schools are different, and the goal of secondary vocational schools is to send students with a solid technical skills foundation and qualified cultural foundation to higher vocational education, so in the setting of the "famous school +" model and type, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of vocational education as the main body. For example, group management, because vocational education itself has its own regional or industry vocational education group, high-quality high schools can join different vocational education groups, which can not only achieve resource sharing, but also reflect the cross-border characteristics of vocational education, rather than joining the general high school education group. For entrusted management, the "Chongqing model" has entrusted weak middle jobs to high-quality middle jobs or higher jobs, and has achieved good results, if entrusted to ordinary high schools, vocational education itself may be difficult to implement the training mode of industry-education integration, school-enterprise cooperation, and combination of engineering and learning, but it has lost the original intention of job integration. The appointment of the principal of an ordinary high school as the principal of a secondary vocational school should vary from person to person. As early as 2015, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Professional Standards for Principals of Secondary Vocational Schools", which has corresponding requirements for job qualifications, and the secondary vocational principals have professional training specifically on the concept of vocational education, management capabilities, the trend of vocational education reform and development at home and abroad, industrial development, industry needs and changes in vocational positions, curriculum characteristics, etc. High schools and vocational schools are two different types of schools, and can serve as high-quality high school principals may not be able to be competent as secondary vocational principals, therefore, It is necessary to establish a self-owned management cadre training mechanism of the vocational education system to stimulate the development momentum and professionalism of vocational education workers. The best model of "famous schools +" is "one school, one policy", implementing "higher vocational + middle vocational" in middle vocational schools with good development and close professional characteristics, through 3+2 cooperative schools, in professional settings, curriculum system, resource construction, teaching work, enrollment and employment, etc., deep integration of middle and high vocational schools; weak middle jobs can and high-quality middle jobs "+", in professional construction, teaching management, team building and other aspects of help and improve quality; as for the "school-enterprise integration" model, itself is the most distinctive place of vocational schools. Special policies are needed to implement them well.
(The name of the student in this article is a pseudonym)
Reporter: Kong Xiangna; Editor: Guan Xiaogang
