3.6 Reform of the Process of Instruction

The decisive factor in market competition is the quality of goods and services. That depends on the skill of workers and instruction in vocational schools. Now the staff in vocational schools have fully realised the importance of skill training.

In ancient China, apprenticeship had been set up and much emphasis had been laid on skill training. Owing to the rapid expansion of vocational education in recent years, we lack many skilled teachers and instructors, and training facilities. Besides, the way of teaching and training should be improved. We are now making every effort to seek effective methods to improve and innovate skill training, including learning experiences from abroad. We have introduced competence-based education (CBE) from Canada, the MES advocated by the ILO, and the dual-system from The Federal Republic of Germany. At present, the dual-system is on trial in some vocational schools of six cities and several large enterprises; the CBE is on trial in about 30 schools, whereas MES is in many skilled worker schools. We learn from others' experiences in order to create our own.

China introduced CBE and the methods of DACUM from Canada in 1990. More than 20 specialised secondary schools in China have set up cooperative relations with Canadian Community Colleges. They sent teachers to Canada. We have held two CBE seminars at national level, at which some Canadian scholars were invited to give lectures.

Now more than 50 specialised schools are experimenting CBE and DACUM. For example, Qinhuangdon Coal Industry School in Hebei Province has sent 10 teachers and administrators to visit community colleges in Canada. At present DACUM is on trial in finance and accounting programs, DACUM charts are worked out and teaching material were being adjusted concerning 17 courses. "Marketing" and knowledge of western management were added into the contents of learning. Positive results have been made and the reform of teaching method and contents were promoted. Now the experiments are going on, and even extending to the specialised schools of agriculture, electricity, machinery and so on.

Meanwhile, China will gradually implement the system of Skill-oriented Certificate for workers. At the same time we are going to put into effect Double-Certificate System in vocational schools. That means students graduating from any kind of vocational school will get a General Certificate from the school while passing a course exam, and will get a Skill-Scale-Certificate from trades or from the professional societies when they pass the technical or skill test.

In rural areas, we have made some steps in carrying out qualification certification for peasants which we call Green Certificate. When peasants receive some training for some time and master some practical skills, then they get Green Certificates. According to the plan of the Ministry of Agriculture, by the year of 2000, there will be 10 million peasants who have Green Certificates. This means there will be six to ten peasants who have Green Certificates in each village, so that the ratio of popularisation of agricultural scientific findings and new technology will be from about 35-40 per cent at present to 65-70 per cent by the year 2000. The implementation of Double Certificate and Green Certificate will surely improve China's TVE system and make it towards standardisation.