BIBB intensifies cooperation activities with Chinese partners
Julia Schmidt, Dr. Gert Zinke, Prof. Zhou Gengfu 1
Context
Currently, vocational education and training is high up on the Chinese government's agenda. Vocational education and training (VET) is seen as an important basis for economic and social development, and hence constitutes a strategic element of the education system. The growing Chinese economy increasingly requires suitably skilled labor, whereas in the past, graduates with academic degrees were more in demand.
Between 2006 and 2010, the government has committed extensive resources to the expansion and improvement of VET. Important aspects of the reform are the practical orientation of training, capacity development of middle and upper VET schools and initial and further training for VET training personnel.
Since the 90s, several German institutions have been cooperating with Chinese partner institutions, among them BIBB and GTZ. The collaboration partners were primarily the Central and Regional VET Bureaus (ZIBB, RIBB) as well as Tongji University's Institute of Vocational and Technical Education. The joint activites focussed on exchange about continuous improvement of the quality of the VET system, in particular through qualification of VET training personnel and the development of occupational, training and assessment standards.
Current Activities
On May 13, two key representatives of the VET system in China visited BIBB to present current developments regarding VET in China. Professor Jiang Dayuan is currently the director of the Institute for VET at the Ministry of Education. Formerly, he served as director of Tongji University's Institute of Vocational and Technical Education. In his lecture at BIBB, he presented the systematic curriculum developed based on work processes within the Chinese VET system.
Professor Zhou Gengfu is the current director of Tongji University's Institute of Vocational and Technical Education. His presentation focussed on the importance of qualified teachers for VET in China. In particular, he described the further training program conducted by the Institute for several hundred VET school teachers, which is conducted each summer.
BIBB expert Dr. Gert Zinke added his reflections from the perspective of a German with long-standing work experience in China.
In March 2009, Germany's Ministry of Education and research, China's Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology officially proclaimed 2009/10 as the German-Chinese Year of Science and Education. BIBB will participate in the activities planned for this year in two ways: On the one hand, BIBB will present VET "made in Germany" at the German-Chinese Exposition in Shenyang in June 2009. On the other hand, Tongji University's Institute of Vocational and Technical Education and BIBB will jointly conduct a workshop for VET experts, also in Shenyang in June 2009. The aim of this workshop is to identify options for future collaboration between BIBB and Chinese partners.
Outlook
The increasing interest of Chinese partners in VET, and in particular in the German cooperative training system, and enhanced awareness within Germany for China as a future market constitute excellent conditions for intensifying cooperation activities between BIBB and Chinese partners. Based on the topics which will be discussed during the expert workshop in Shenyang, further collaborative projects will be elaborated and agreed upon in the coming months.
