A Study On Upper Secondary Vocational Education And Training In Finland Since 1990s

"Vocational education is too needful, and also too important" Premier Wen Jiabao said when inspecting, Shenzhen Polytechnic. In the Report on the Work of the Government in 2007 Premier Wen Jiabao also identified explicitly that the focus would be on developing secondary vocational education.Secondary vocational education plays an import role in the development of the economy and the society in China. Our government begins to emphasize the development of secondary vocational education, and attaches more importance and more prominence to developing it. But secondary vocational education is a weak part of the Chinese education, and it is developing slowly with a series of problems, which need to be solved urgently. But the reform in upper secondary vocational education in Finland since 1990s is a success, which advances the developing of the economy. It deserves to be learned.The paper has carried on a study of the reform in upper secondary vocational education and training in Finland since 1990s. Firstly, the paper explores the background of the reform and the factors leading to the reform. Secondly, the paper explores the measures of the reform taken by the Finnish Government from raising the status, flexibility, and the attractiveness of upper secondary vocational education. Thirdly, the paper carries on the exploration of the basic condition of the reform, which is the main part, including curricula, patterns of learning, vocational qualifications, the management of quality, and the construction of teachers. Fourthly, the paper evaluates the reform in upper secondary vocational education and training in Finland briefly. Finally, taking the success of secondary vocational education training in Finland as references, the author gives his own suggestion on the reform of secondary vocational education in China.