Source: JIEFANG Daily   Author: Chu Min, Zhang Chen

 █Chu Min, Zhang Chen

In order to respond the call of the Party Central Committee, Shanghai realizes that it’s the bounden duty to continue to be the “pacesetter” and “pioneer” in promoting regional coordinated development and rural revitalization. Recent years, in the field of assisting Xinjiang, Shanghai vocational education took the initiative to make a difference and now it has formed “Shanghai mode”, which not only has trained a large number of high-quality workers and technically skilled-talents urgently needed for the economic and social development of Kashgar, but also has strongly promoted the employment and entrepreneurship of local youths “at their own backyard” and played the role of “one person employed, the whole family was lifted from poverty”, and made a positive contribution to interrupting the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

Anchoring Employment Advantage——

The state is based on people, and people live by their business. The most important and realistic unique value of developing vocational education in paring assistance and rural revitalization is to directly help local youths get jobs or start up business. Shanghai proposed and implemented the human resource strategy of “prioritizing vocational education” to respond the characteristics of the region when providing assistance to the Kashgar region.

In October 2018, the autonomous region government approved the establishment of “Kashgar Vocational and Technical College”, achieving a “breakthrough of zero” in higher vocational education in the region. Since 2019, Kashgar Vocational and Technical College has enrolled 7,731 specialized senior vocational students. In 2022, the employment rate of its first batch of graduates reached 92.8%, sending a number of high-quality workers and technically skilled talents for the economic and social development of Kashgar region in a relatively short period of time.

Meanwhile, the hotel management major supported by Shanghai Urban Construction Vocational College (SUCC) has led to a 92% increase in the number of students enrolled in related majors; The fashion design and craft major supported by Shanghai Donghai Vocational&Technical College has led to a 119% increase in the number of students enrolled in related majors, The e-commerce major assisted by Shanghai Xianjian College, has led to a 505% increase in the number of students enrolled in related majors. At present, Shanghai is actively helping Kashgar to build the second higher vocational college in the region.

Relying on Institutions’ Advantage ——

Rural revitalization gives the top priority to industrial revitalization. Since Huang Yanpei founded the Chinese Vocational School in Shanghai in 1918, Shanghai vocational education has been accompanied with the industrial development of Shanghai all the way, forming a number of distinctive vocational colleges and universities relying on industries, enterprises and factors to operate schools.

Under the guidance of the Shanghai Forward Command of pairing assistance to Xinjiang and the relevant government departments of Shanghai and Kashgar, Shanghai vocational colleges and universities have established an assistance mechanism of “One school is major and several schools assist one”. Among them, SUCC leads many colleges and universities in Shanghai and school-enterprise cooperation units to assist Kashgar vocational colleges in a group according to the model of "one Shanghai school matchmaking one major".

Now, 15 majors in urgent need such as construction engineering technology and hotel management have been set up, helping Kashgar's higher vocational education to filling the gap in the field in the region, and it is also making a leap from small to big and weak to strong.

Taking Good Advantage of Scientific Research Traction——

In the case of clear market demand, schools are able to set majors according to market demand. However, in places where the market is not yet well-developed, it is often difficult for schools to judge the economic and social development and market employment needs by their own abilities and thus to set majors reasonably. Against such background, it is necessary to introduce the professional power of scientific research institutions.

When Shanghai provides assistance to the Kashgar region, due to the weak base of local industry and education, Vocational Education Institute of Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences actively plays its professional advantages, from the view of the national strategy, the stability of the border and the general situation of regional development, utilizes a systematic concept to comprehensively analyze the local resource endowment, industrial development and the current situation of supply and demand of human resources, and then makes a scientific study and judgment on the industrial development trend and talents demand in conjunction with the policy guidance, prospectively puts forward the development plan of vocational education in the Kashgar region, and formulates a professional map to combine “what Shanghai can do” to form a balanced supply and demand assistance scheme.

The “Shanghai Model” of vocational education assistance to Xinjiang embodies the characteristics of scientific research, implementation by colleges and universities, multi-party coordination, matching supply and demand, and flexibility and rigidity. One of the key parts is to bring in scientific research institutions to play a pivotal role between the government departments and vocational colleges or universities in both places.

On the one hand, the formation of supply and demand matching assistance program through systematic research is an important prerequisite and basic condition for Shanghai vocational education pairing assistance to achieve effective results; On the other hand, through scientific research traction to promote the implementation of institutions, multi-party collaboration, to guide the two institutions to accurately allocate resources to professional areas, the implementation of talents training.

The 20th CPC National Congress report clearly requires the in-depth implementation of regional coordinated development strategies, major regional strategies, main functional area strategies, new urbanization strategies, optimize the layout of major productive forces, and build a regional economic layout and territorial spatial system with complementary advantages and high-quality development. Looking ahead, in the process of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, Shanghai can play a new and greater contribution by continuing to make good use of the unique experience and advantages formed by Shanghai vocational education in helping to combat poverty and pairing assistance to Xinjiang.

(The authors are Secretary of the Party Committee of SUCC and Director of Vocational Education Institute of Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences, respectively)