Vocational School Of Professional Teachers

The flourishing of the higher vocational education of China had its beginning in the 1980. It had rapid expansion in the past odd ten years, becoming a necessary part of importance of the higher education of China, and taking up over 50% of the tasks of the massification of higher education in terms of the enrollment expansion. The higher vocational education of China was developed by means of "three transformations and one complementation", transforming the existing vocational colleges, sub-bachelor colleges and adult colleges and elevating some of the leading vocational schools, into higher vocational education institutions. These newly transformed or elevated vocational colleges are faced with the problems in such areas as programme postioning, teaching management, and faculty building. The faculty, however, requires the greatest improvement of all, with the professional instructor as the center of the concerns, in the process of the fulfillment of the vocation-oriented and ability-based programme objectives. It is necessary to borrow from the experience of the higher vocational education in the developed countries or areas to promote investigations of the faculty defects and the origins of the defects, for the sake of the improvement of the faculty and further of the whole higher vocational education.First of all, on the basis of defining higher vocational education and other conceptions related, the paper presents a brief treatment of such issues as the basic theory, the professional instructor, and the programme objectives of the higher vocational education, preparing the theoretical ground for further exploration in the following chapters.The paper continues with an analysis of the problems existing in the structure of the faculty of professional instructors and the problems with individual professional instructors, and the causes of such problems under discussion, using the results of the investigations of some higher vocational colleges in Hunan Province. Doubt is cast upon the current idea of the "two-roles-in-one" professional instructor.The study is furthered with a comprehensive multi-dimensional treatment of the necessary qualities of the professional instructor ofhigher vocational education, from the stances of the programme objectives and curriculum models. Upon a comparison of the professional instructors of higher vocational education of foreign countries, measures are suggested that professional instructors have special qualifications, professional instructors have prescribed accomplishments, so as to guarantee the improvement of the qualities and abilities of the professional instructor.The paper, finally, proposes that a system of achievement assessment and rank promotion be established for the professional instructor of higher vocational education, that an engineering master programme be modeled of the joint "university + research institute" agency, that a team of part-time instructors be organized, that an institution be established of the professional instructor filling the vocational post for practice, and that a unity be conceived of production, teaching and research to improve the creativity and capacity of the professional instructor.