A Study Of The Thoughts On Higher Vocational Education In Modern China

With the upgrading of the Chinese industry structure and the acceleration of the economic globalization, there has been an increasing need for those highly-specialized talents. Prompted by this strong need, China's higher vocational education has ushered into a new booming era and accordingly there has been a surging wave in its theoretical studies since the 1990's.Due to the short history of China's higher vocational education, there exists a slight insufficiency in its theoretical study, which has limited the vocational education in practice. Thus, in order to perfect the theoretical system of our higher vocational education and in turn guide its current practice, it is beneficial for us to review the history of higher vocational education in modern China and identify its main connotations and features and determine its realistic guiding significance.This thesis focuses on the analysis of the thoughts on higher professional education in modern China arising from the development of the higher professional education in the industrial age in modern China from the yearl 840 to 1949.The thesis emphasizes the main connotations, the main features and the realistic significance of the thoughts on the higher vocational education in modern China, and the main body of it consists of four parts. The first part expounds the three stages of the development of higher vocational education in modern China, which is further divided into three sections respectively elaborating its embryonic stage, initial stage and fully development stage with a lot of ups and downs from the years of Westernization Movement in the 1860's to the year 1949.The second part expounds the main connotations of the thoughts on higher vocational education in modern China, which is also further divided into three sections respectively elaborating from the macro to the micro the aims, the guiding principles and the objectives of talents training of higher vocational education in modern China. The essence of the educational ideology of this period is revealed from the thoughts and remarks of some distinguished educationalists of modern China.The third part elaborates the main features of the educational ideology ofhigher vocational education in modern China which is further divided into three sections respectively explaining its three features, namely, the three vocational education ideology waves being the main carrier; 'pragmatism' being the spiritual core, and 'education for national salvation' being the objective. The three main features have been closely analyzed and their positive aspects have been affirmed and the negative ones refuted.The fourth part focuses on the realistic guiding significance of the ideology of higher vocational education in modern China. Based on the prior second and third parts and the actual practice of the present higher vocational education in China, the thesis sheds lights on the realistic significance of the ideology of higher vocational education, namely, determining the strategic principle of developing higher vocational education to the fullest extent and promoting the sound development of China's higher vocational education with the forces of all circles united.