Current Situation And Countermeasures Of Fostering Student’s Practical Ability In Vocational Secondary Schools

In2002, the State Council of China issued an important government document titled as“Recommendation of Vigorously Improving the Transformation and Development ofSecondary Vocational Education”. The document explicitly emphasized the vital significanceof enhancing practical ability and professional skills in vocational schools. Especially,Premier Li, Keqiang chaired a routine meeting of the State Council on February26,2014fordeploying fast-developing modern vocational education. The key objective of this meetingwas to establish an irreplaceable function for secondary vocational education in the nationalhuman resource training systems and create an encouraging social atmosphere of respectingpractical skills and abilities instead of just earning or conferring diplomas among the youngvocational school students. Therefore, fostering student’s practical ability is an everincreasingly important topic in the research field of improving the general social status ofcurrent secondary vocational education. Student’s practical ability is one of the most criticalindicators to show the achievement of the goal of national quality secondary vocationaleducation. The findings of this research enriches the theoretical bases of secondary vocationaleducation, provides profound discussions on strategies of improving student’s practical ability,and proposes a justified action model for practitioners in secondary vocational education tobetter cultivate student’s practical ability.There are four Chapters in this study covering the backgrounds, current issues, andcorresponding countermeasures for further development of modern secondary vocationaleducation in China.Chapter One: Introduction. It presents the research background, research purposes,significance of the study, conceptual framework, methodology, and a preliminary literaturereview to the prior studies related to understanding student’s practical ability in secondaryvocational schools.Chapter Two: Theoretical foundation of fostering student’s practical ability in secondaryvocational schools. This chapter mainly focuses on the definition of student’s practical abilityin the specific genre of secondary vocational education field. As we know,“practice” is a keyconcept in western philosophy and “practical” is also the base-point of modern Marxism. By thoroughly exploring the deep meaning of the combined term of “practical ability” from twosingle terms, practice and ability, this Chapter presents the research findings from scholars ofvarious field of expertise, including philosophy, psychology, and education forconceptualizing a solid theoretical foundation in vocational education research. Especially,Howard Gardner’s Intellectual Pluralism Theory which had exerted wide and criticalinfluence to American educational transformations provides an important theoreticalperspective for this study.Chapter Three: Current situation and concerns of fostering student’s practical ability insecondary vocational schools. A Questionnaire survey to322students and a series ofinterviews to selected administrative staff members from Shijiazhuang Railway VocationalSchool were conducted to collect the needed data. Questions asked to those students includethe self-evaluation of their communication ability, networking and cooperative ability,expression ability and professional problem solving abilities. Interviews to administrativestaff focus on their understandings and suggestions on how to better enhance the supportiveenvironment for fostering student’s practical ability from teaching and managing perspectives.The data analysis results reveal the outstanding problems and possible solutions available tothe school.Chapter Four: Responses and recommendations to enhancing student’s practical ability insecondary vocational schools. Based on the theoretical and empirical study on differentaspects of student’s practical ability in vocational education, this study recommends thatsecondary vocational schools should make greater and more effective efforts to enrich thecurriculums and strengthen the applicability of the methods for their training programs.Further and more prosperous development in secondary vocational education should be basedon a clear understanding of the concept of practical ability in the real contexts, a guidingvision for achieving definite purposes, a doable design of training plan, a collection of highquality teaching staff, and a group of self-motivated students. This research concludes thatsecondary professional schools should strive for establishing a more efficient practical-skill-oriented training model that makes fostering student’s practical ability a priority forfurther upgrading secondary vocational education into a greater contributor to and beneficentfrom the modern market economy.