Coupling  of  TVET  Curriculum  and  Enterprise  Certification: 
       Cooperation between Shenzhen Polytechnic and Huawei in China 
        
       Country: China 
       Author: Wang Yongxue, Shenzhen Polytechnic 
        
       Country context 
       In 2019, the State Council of China issued the "National Vocational Education Reform Implementation 
       Plan" which mentioned that the pilot system of "diploma certificate + several vocational skill level 
       certificates" (i.e. 1 + X certificate) should be launched in vocational colleges and application-oriented 
       universities. 
       According to reports, the 1 + X certificate system encourages students to actively obtain multiple 
       vocational skill level certificates while obtaining academic certificates. If the training and evaluation 
       organisations have sufficient reasons to prove that the vocational skill level certificate developed is 
       necessary and feasible, and widely recognized by the society, the training and evaluation organisations 
       can apply to enter the directory list through the selection process and independently carry out the 
       examination and certification. The pilot will start with certificates in 5 fields in the first batch, and 
       about 10 fields was  launched in succession in 2019.  
       Qualified colleges and universities will be selected in some areas to carry out the pilot. The pilot 
       provinces  will  be  determined  by  self-declaration,  and  the  pilot  colleges  and  universities  will  be 
       determined  by  self-declaration  and  recommendation  of  provincial  education  administrative 
       departments. The provinces and universities not included in the pilot scope can also be determined 
       by self-declaration according to relevant national standards and requirements to be carried out pilot 
       work. 
       In 2020,The Ministry of Education issued 70 1 + X vocational skill level certificates and standards in the 
       third batch, and 1 + X 135 vocational skill level certificates and standards in the fourth batch. 
       After 2021, on the basis of summing up the pilot experience, China will gradually implement the 1 + X 
       certificate system in more vocational skills fields nationwide. 
       In order to implement the plan, the Ministry of Education of China will further improve the double 
       qualification characteristic teacher team construction system. We will develop the implementation 
       plan for the construction of vocational education teachers in the new era, establish and improve a 
       hierarchical and classified professional standard system for vocational education teachers, clarify the 
       national requirements for the quality of double qualified teachers in the new era, and establish a 
       management system for the Qualification Access and appointment of double qualified teachers.  
       There  are  1.332  million  full-time  teachers  in  China's  vocational  colleges,  including  834  000  in 
       secondary vocational schools and 498 000 in higher vocational colleges. The number of double 
       qualified teachers has increased steadily. Among them, the proportion of double qualified teachers in 
        
       secondary vocational schools has reached 31.5%, and the proportion of double qualified teachers in 
       higher vocational colleges has reached 39.7%. This is the basic situation of teachers in vocational 
       colleges. 
       The  Ministry  of  Education  will  carry  out  the  national  training  of  double  qualified  teachers  and 
       implement a new cycle of the Vocational College Teachers' quality improvement plan. From 2017 to 
       2018, the central government plans to invest 1.35 billion yuan to set up more than 300 professional 
       training projects and organize 144000 professional backbone teachers to participate in the national 
       training and enterprise practice. 
       Institutional context and challenges  
       The 1 + X certificate system reflects the important characteristics of vocational education as a type of 
       education. It is an important system design to improve the vocational education and training system, 
       and  deepen  the  integration  of  industry  and  education,  and  school  enterprise  cooperation.  The 
       implementation of 1 + X certificate system pilot has the following three aspects of significance: 
       First, it is an important measure to improve the quality of personnel training. Through the guidance 
       of vocational skill level certificate constructed by socialized mechanism, the school accelerates the 
       structural reform of the skills supply side, which is conducive to enhancing the coincidence between 
       skills  training  and  industrial  demand,  cultivating  compound  technical  skills,  and  expanding 
       employment and entrepreneurship skills. 
       Second, it is an important way to deepen the reform of skills training mode and evaluation mode. 
       Through the implementation of the pilot 1 + X certificate system, we will mobilize the enthusiasm of 
       social  forces  to  participate  in  vocational  education,  lead  the  innovation  of  training  mode  and 
       evaluation mode, deepen the reform of teachers, teaching materials and teaching methods, guide the 
       combination of education and training, the combination of long time education and short time 
       training, and the combination of internal and external, further implement the legal responsibility of 
       paying equal attention to academic education and vocational training, and carry out high-quality social 
       training. 
       The  third  is  to  explore  the  basic  project  of  constructing  the  national  qualification  framework. 
       Vocational  skill  level  certificate  is  not  only  the  certificate  of  vocational  skill  level,  but  also  the 
       recognition of learning achievement. Combined with the implementation of 1 + X certificate system 
       pilot, actively promote the exploration of Vocational Education National "credit bank", system design 
       and construction of national qualification framework, and smooth the growth channel of technical 
       skills. 
       Identification  
       With the rapid development of the new generation of ICT and the approaching of 5G application, the 
       existing curriculum system, teaching content, training conditions, teaching staff and technical services 
       will not be able to meet the requirements of the ICT industry and technology development. Artificial 
       intelligence will put forward higher requirements for skills in hard technology and soft quality at the 
       level of technology and application, especially for skills in  creativity, emotional communication ability, 
       ability to solve complex problems, business application ability, etc. Skills development in specialized 
       areas is facing new challenges. 
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       How to bring the advanced elements of the ICT industry such as new technology, new specification 
       and new method into the teaching content? 
       With the rapid development of 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other new generation ICT 
       technologies, the teaching resources are increasingly richer, the teaching situations are increasingly 
       diverse, and teaching time is becoming more flexible, which will inevitably lead to the reform of 
       teaching means and methods. 
       It is urgent to optimize the curriculum system, update the teaching content, upgrade the training 
       platform and improve the quality of  teachers' professional skills. 
       Shenzhen Polytechnic and the Huawei Corporation cultivate technical skills among college students 
       for the ICT industry according to the 1+X framework. Together, Shenzhen Polytechnic and the Huawei 
       Corporation build specialties, design courses, and cultivate skills to serve the needs of the ICT industry 
       specifically.  Teachers  from  Shenzhen  Polytechnic  integrate  the  certificate  of  Huawei  into  the 
       Curriculum and cultivate their college students to be certificated in technical skills. Both Shenzhen 
       Polytechnic and Huawei keep close cooperation in order to routinely update the curriculum and 
       certificate,  thus  ensuring  that  the  needs of the newest skills in the ICT industry are adequately 
       satisfied. 
                                           
       Figure 1: Cooperation between Shenzhen Polytechnic and Huawei 
       Shenzhen Polytechnic has built the first batch network technology academy of HUAWEI in 2011, and 
       built the first ICT academy of HUAWEI in 2014.In 2012, Shenzhen Polytechnic won the global top ten 
       excellent partner of Huawei. From 2017 to 2019,Shenzhen Polytechnic won the excellent Huawei 
       authorized Information and Network Academy every year. In 2020,Shenzhen Polytechnic built the first 
       5G+ skills training base of Huawei. 
       Shenzhen Polytechnic and Huawei build specialties together, build Courses together and cultivate 
       skills  together  to  serve  the  skills  needs  of  the  ICT  industry  effectively.  Shenzhen  Polytechnic 
       successfully integrates the enterprise's original certification（Huawei Certification）for on-the-job 
       engineers into the skills training program of higher vocational colleges, and constructs a learning 
       program suitable for zero foundation students. 
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       With  the  development  of  industrial  technology,  Huawei's  certification  standards  are  constantly 
       upgraded, and Shenzhen polytechnic’s curriculum system is also updated and fed back. At the same 
       time, Shenzhen polytechnic radiates its successful experience to other higher vocational colleges. 
       In the Huawei Global ICT Competition, Shenzhen Polytechnic has won 1 global champion, 1 global 
       special prize and 3 national champions. In other national competitions, Shenzhen Polytechnic has won 
       more than 10 national first prize in ICT field. 
       Integration  
       The 3-year period of study for the students in Shenzhen Polytechnic is divided into three phases. 
       Semester 1-2 is the phase of public basic courses. Semester 2-3 is the phase of professional basic 
       courses. And Semesters 4-6 is the phase of the Certificate Course. Figure 2 is the Curriculum of 
       Shenzhen Polytechnic oriented to the Huawei Certificate.  
        
                                  
       Figure 2: ICT Curriculum System oriented to Huawei Certification in Shenzhen Polytechnic  
       In  Phase  3,  there  are  different  certificate  directions  for  the  students  to  choose,  such  as  data 
       communication, mobile communication, cloud computing etc. In each direction, the student can get 
       3 levels of certificates, which are the assistant level-HCIA certificate, professional level-HCIP certificate 
       and expert level-HCIE certificate.   
       If a student is clever and diligent enough, this student may achieve the highest level and obtain the 
       Huawei Certificate, which will help facilitate a better job after graduation. In our system, students are 
       trained according to their seven-dimensional abilities. Such training provides exceptional preparation 
       for students moving forward into the workforce. This curriculum built by Shenzhen Polytechnic and 
       Huawei has accomplished many achievements in practice. 
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