Let "Professional Undergraduate" Become a Golden Sign

Make "Vocational Undergraduate" a golden signboard

In this graduation season, the employment and development of the first vocational undergraduate graduates in China attract people's attention. Since 219, the Ministry of Education has approved some schools to carry out pilot vocational education at the undergraduate level. The first batch of "crab eaters" graduated this year. Some of them entered leading enterprises, while others chose to continue their studies, leading to more choices in the future.

what's the difference between a vocational undergraduate course and an ordinary undergraduate course? Will vocational undergraduate graduates encounter discrimination in further studies and employment because of the word "occupation" on their graduation certificates? Since the emergence of new undergraduate courses such as vocational undergraduate courses, these problems have attracted much attention.

The purpose of holding vocational education at undergraduate level in China is to enhance the status of vocational education, build vocational education into a type of education equal to general education, and optimize the personnel training structure. The quality of running a vocational college and the graduation destination of the first vocational college graduates not only directly affect the prospects of running such colleges, but also affect the implementation of the vocational education law, which is of great significance to promoting employment and entrepreneurship and building a skilled society.

For vocational undergraduates, the voice of "bearish" was once quite loud. In view of the realistic problem of "valuing academic qualifications and ignoring skills" in society, vocational undergraduates' educators, students and parents are also worried that although they belong to the undergraduate level, their status may be lower than that of ordinary undergraduates. In recent years, at the national and local conferences, there are still many voices suggesting that vocational colleges should be renamed and "occupation" should be changed to "application" or "technology". In addition, although the Ministry of Education requires that the word "occupation" must be kept in the name of vocational colleges, it is also a question whether vocational colleges can adhere to the orientation of vocational education, whether they can be content with the orientation of vocational education and cultivate high-quality skilled talents with employment as the guidance.

In view of these problems, the the State Council Academic Degrees Committee Office issued relevant documents, pointing out that both ordinary undergraduate and vocational undergraduate students are authorized, awarded, managed and supervised in quality in accordance with the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees, the Interim Measures for the Implementation of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees, and the Administrative Measures for the Authorization and Awarding of Bachelor Degrees; In terms of the utility of certificates, the two are of equal value and have the same effect in employment, postgraduate entrance examination and public examination. However, whether it can be truly equivalent remains to be tested by reality.

It is worth noting that the employment difficulties of some college graduates and the recruitment difficulties of some employers exist at the same time, which reflects the serious problem that the talent training structure and quality of higher education in China are out of line with social needs. Judging from the social demand for talents, most local undergraduate colleges should hold vocational education and run schools with employment as the orientation. However, it is difficult for many local undergraduate colleges to suppress the impulse to run comprehensive colleges and cultivate academic talents. This not only leads to the imbalance between the talent training structure and social demand, but also has the quality problem of "high is not enough, low is not enough".

The new vocational education law makes it clear that vocational education is a type of education with the same important status as general education. If vocational education is to be truly recognized, it must have distinctive characteristics of type education. Vocational undergraduate colleges adhere to the orientation of vocational education, promote the integration of production and education, and run schools in cooperation with enterprises, and train graduates to closely meet the needs of industries, which will be welcomed by employers.

Improving the quality of running a vocational college and understanding of vocational education in social transformation need benign interaction. Employers should set recruitment requirements scientifically from the perspective of improving recruitment quality, and those positions that recruit skilled talents should downplay academic qualifications and pay attention to examining job seekers' skills. This will promote vocational colleges to attach importance to students' skills training, and thus form the characteristics and competitiveness of running schools. Only in this way can we fundamentally solve the problem of difficult employment and difficult recruitment. Simply emphasizing job seekers' academic qualifications is not conducive to employers recruiting high-quality talents and optimizing the human resources team.

The whereabouts of the first vocational undergraduate graduates have shown to some extent that the word "occupation" on graduation certificates and degree certificates is not the burden for students to pursue further studies and apply for jobs. As long as vocational undergraduates attach importance to the quality of talent training, and reflect the orientation and characteristics of talent training in vocational education according to the requirements of type education in specialty setting, curriculum setting and talent training mode, "occupation" will become the competitive feature of vocational undergraduates. Vocational college graduates have equal or even better employment and development prospects than ordinary college graduates, which will also promote social change in understanding of vocational education, broaden the development space of vocational education, and broaden students' choice of becoming talents.