Thumbs up for hands-on experience

A dinner chat turns to the subject of service, and a trade college is born

Mariane Cavalli, principal and chief executive of Warwickshire College, says she first considered the possibility of establishing a British further-education college in China four years ago while chatting to a business contact in a restaurant in China with poor customer service.

In fact, the service was so appalling that the waiter stood right next to her with his arms folded because he wanted to go home, she recalled. "I commented that customer service could be improved with some changes in China's vocational education sector."

Her contact across the table, Luo Xiaoming, chairman of the Beijing Guozheng International Education Investment Co Ltd, had similar aspiration and although Cavalli and her vice-principal Charles Cao Quin went to China with the intention of recruiting new students, they soon realized they could work with Luo on a grander project.

The two parties began discussions on the opportunity to nurture young Chinese workers into innovative individuals with the right skill sets for the workforce, and the first ever British further-education college in China was set up in Qingzhou of Shandong province, last month.

"The Chinese education system places a great value on academic achievements. But for people who don't want to follow an academic career, or, having followed an academic career, want to go into vocational-related employment or wish to set up their own businesses, there is a gap," Cavalli says.

"The gap is partially filled by the vocational colleges in China. But there are also young Chinese people being encouraged to think and develop the skills for individual learning, and this is what we are hoping to encourage and nurture."

The China-UK National Skills College can accommodate 20,000 students. It will award British qualifications to students aged 18 or older from all over China.

The college was set up as a joint venture between Warwickshire College, Weifang Vocational College, and Luo's business. Its revenues will mainly come from student fees and corporate sponsorships.

The first full intake will not be until next September, but the college is now in the process of transferring some existing students from Weifang Vocational College. The first courses it will offer are early education, child care and engineering.

Weifang Vocational College will send a group of teachers to Warwickshire College for training in delivering a curriculum that will meet British standards, and Warwickshire College will send teachers in the opposite direction to help implement the new curriculum.

Situated in England's West Midlands, Warwickshire College opened in 1996. It has 20,000 students, 1,750 staff and 1,500 courses across 20 different subject areas.

Cavalli says that one challenge the college faced was to develop a curriculum that reflected the needs of the Chinese vocational job market and at the same time met British standards.

"If we want to validate the learning of students, first we have to produce a new curriculum. We are not interested in saying, 'You carry on what you're doing and we'll put a British stamp on it'."

For example, one thing that distinguishes the new curriculum is its emphasis on teaching students the most up-to-date industry standards and letting them learn how to operate the latest equipment.

"We can't picture a world that is driven by technology in the way it will be in the future. All of those students will operate in a networked and global world, and they will be operating in a globally competitive environment," Cavalli says.

In contrast, she says that some of the vocational colleges in China that she visited had outdated technology and processes. "And when students leave their courses they won't be able to deal with the new equipment. They'll need to learn a whole new set of skills on the kind of equipment they're to use in their new businesses."

Cavalli says she does not know why many Chinese vocational colleges had outdated equipment, but that one way of discouraging this phenomenon is designing a forward-looking curriculum.

For example, Warwickshire College has constantly invested in new technology because its students will not be able to receive their qualifications from external examination bodies without knowing how to operate the latest equipment.

Another factor is the need to satisfy the demands of employers, who often send apprentices to vocational colleges for training.

For example, Warwickshire College now trains more than 400 apprentices from the British car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, which requires its apprentices to attend a college that uses equipment identical to that of the carmaker.

Another characteristic of the new curriculum of the China-UK National Skills College is its emphasis on creativity, encouraging students to leave with "iquiring minds", Cavalli says.

"In the UK we have a more informal style of teaching and learning. It is more about participation and experiential learning. In some areas in China, that's not the case," she says.

"We want to look at how these learning characteristics can be developed into young Chinese people themselves, so they become expert learners, rather than constantly working with expert teachers. And they develop independent learning, which can be put into the workplace."

Hence, the new curriculum hopes to teach students to actively "contribute towards their companies' future development", rather than only minding their own responsibilities "with their heads down", Cavalli says.

Indeed, China's rapid growth has created a shortage of highly skilled and innovative workers in recent years.

In the past few decades, higher education has received more government support and industry recognition. Consequently, the best performers in China's annual national college entrance exam move on to universities, and those failing to gain university admissions go to vocational colleges.

But as China's economic base is shifting from low-cost manufacturing to high-tech industries, there has been an evident shortage of highly skilled workers with hands-on experience. Multinationals that have subsidiaries in China face a similar challenge.

Alan McArthur, director of Technical and Vocational Education and Training United Kingdom, a trade association for vocational education providers, adds that if more and more companies invest in training their workers, the whole industry would benefit.

"In the UK, advanced manufacturing companies have invested in UK colleges to develop talent. Companies can cherry pick the best of [the trainees] and let the overspill feed the rest of the market. This model could be replicated in China," he says.

McArthur says that he has seen an increasing number of Chinese delegations visiting Britain to learn about its vocational education and training systems, indicating a demand for reforms in China's vocational education sector.

Such reforms would undoubtedly involve the UK-China National Skills College. Not only will its changes transform China's advanced manufacturing industry, the college will also provide new opportunities for some young Chinese people with a talent for vocational work.

"My passion for further education comes from the fact it provides opportunities for everybody to develop skills and develop a career if that's what they want to do," Cavalli says.

Born in Manchester, Cavalli left school as a teenager with no formal qualifications. She was originally trained as a nurse but found a passion for teaching in her mid-20s while doing nurse tutoring for a few weeks to cover for a colleague's maternity leave.

She then went to her local college to teach biology and pre-nursing courses. "I came into education and realized that I had to do a lot of studying," Cavalli says. She eventually gained an MBA qualification while shouldering the responsibilities of being a mother.

Cavalli is now excited to give the same opportunities to China's young workers. "China in the future will need people to become more entrepreneurial, to become more innovative, and that is where the vocational education sector can help."

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/09/2012 page15)