On August 19, the World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference was held in Tianjin. Sun Chunlan, Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, read a congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping and delivered a video address at the opening ceremony.

Sun Chunlan pointed out that the congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping deeply expounded the important role of vocational education in promoting economic development and improving people’s livelihood, and added confidence and impetus to deepening international exchanges and cooperation in vocational education. The Chinese government attaches great importance to vocational education, adheres to the type orientation of vocational education, deepens the reform of vocational education, and has established the world’s largest vocational education system, which provides an important support for high-quality development, and can also satisfy the growth needs of different students, broaden their career development prospects, and give everyone the opportunity to excel in life. China is ready to work with the international community to build a multi-tiered and wide-ranging cooperation platform, increase support for vocational education in developing countries, especially African countries, and drive people of all countries to share the fruits of vocational education development.

The World Vocational and Technical Education Development Conference is an important part of the list of outcomes of the High-level Dialogue on Global Development. At the conference, themed by “Development of Vocational and Technical Education in the Post-Pandemic Era: New Changes, New Methods and New Skills”, heads of relevant international organizations, ministers of education and diplomatic envoys from various countries had in-depth online and offline discussions.

The conference was held both online and offline, including the opening ceremony, the keynote session, 14 parallel sessions, and the closing ceremony. At the same time, the First World Vocational College Skills Competition and the World Expo on the Integration of Vocation Education with Industry (Online) were also held, and the initiative to establish the World Vocational and Technical Education Development Alliance was released, forming a new platform and paradigm of “conference, alliance, competition and exhibition” for international exchanges and cooperation in vocational education.

As the only representative of colleges in China, Yang Xinbin, Secretary of the Party Committee of SZPT, delivered a wonderful speech titled “Strive to be the first assault boat for innovation and development of vocational education in China” at the keynote session of the conference. He said that in recent years, SZPT actively implements the important instructions of President Xi Jinping, takes it as its duty to be the first “assault boat” for innovation and development of vocational education, help students grow into talents, acts as the practitioner of “skills make a wonderful life”, serves the transformation of high-end industries, supports “made in China, created in China”, serves the reform of vocational education, plays a leading role in “digital transformation”, makes reform with keen determination and take faster steps in action, giving a fruitful answer to vocational education in Shenzhen. Next, SZPT will actively implement the initiatives of the conference, uphold the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, constantly expand the “circle of friends” for international cooperation, make practical actions to promote the innovation and development of global vocational education, and join hands with peers at home and abroad to create a better future of vocational education.

President Xu Jianling attended the Digital Transformation Session and delivered a keynote speech titled “Transformation of Talent Training Mode at Higher Vocational Colleges in the Digital Era”. He said that in the era of digital economy, the transformation of digital-oriented talent training mode at higher vocational colleges is the only way for them to actively adapt to the national economic and industrial pattern and train a large number of new digital skilled craftsmen and artisans for the economy and society.He introduced in detail the experience and practices of SZPT from four aspects: accelerating the digital transformation of the organizational mode for talent training; comprehensive practice of digital talent training based on the deep cooperation between colleges and enterprises; accelerating the digital transformation of talent training standards; and establishing diversified training channels for digital talents.SZPT actively connects with the digital industry, optimizes the structure of academic disciplines, innovates a new model of digital education according to its own advantages, and contributes to the world the “SZPT Experience” in the digital transformation of talent training mode at higher vocational colleges.

Mr. Martin Fleischer, Director of Sino-German Higher Vocational Education Innovation Center of SZPT, as the only foreign guest speaker at the Digital Transformation and Development Session, delivered a speech titled “Vocational Education 4.0 Transformation in the Context of Industry 4.0 - German Experience”. He said that Industry 4.0 has profoundly changed the future career landscape, which contains great opportunities and challenges. He introduced to the participants the successful experience of Germany’s vocational education to cope with the challenges of digitalization - dual system education, stressed the importance of building Learning Factory 4.0, and provided useful experience for the digital development and transformation of vocational education in China.

In the First World Vocational College Skills Competition, the SZPT representative team participated in three segments: automotive technology; virtual reality design and production; information security management and evaluation, and won the only silver medal of Guangdong Province in the automotive technology segment.

SZPT also participated in organizing the World Expo on the Integration of Vocation Education with Industry, and demonstrated SZPT’s achievements in engineering technology education at the Engineering Education Exhibition section of the “Exhibition Area for High-Quality Development of Vocational Education” in Cloud Exhibition Hall.

(Department of Publicity)