Comparison Study On The Development Of Comprehensive Vocational Ability Between China And German Vocational Education

The Ministry of Education has set a new goal for the cultivation of the 21st century personnel in the Advice on How to Promote Qualification Education and the Reform of Medium Vocational Education issued on March 21, 2000. The goal of medium vocational education is to foster labors with high qualification and specialized personnel of medium level, who have a comprehensive vocational ability that matches the demands of the socialist modernization, and who can work on the frontline of production, service, technology and management. The Advice has become a guideline that all the vocational schools have to follow, and it has also brought up a new subject on how to foster comprehensive vocational ability.stepping into the 21st century, we are now living in the age of knowledge economy, which is characteristic of informationization, marketization and globalization. China will also see its good opportunity of developing into "the world's manufacturing center". The personnel needed by the modern society are totally different from those in a traditional sense, the former is supposed to be skillful, whereas the latter is usually technical. What the enterprises need are personnel with a comprehensive vocational ability, which is the key to one or more similar professions. A comprehensive vocational ability can be divided into ability of professions; ability of methods and ability of social activities as far as its contents and scope are concerned.Although the concept of "comprehensive vocational ability" was put forward as a goal of medium vocational education, yet no definition was made, and there a re still no suggestions and requests on curriculum arrangements, teaching plan and teaching method. Exploration have been made, to a certain extent, by different vocational schools on how to cultivate students' comprehensive vocational ability, but in view of the fact that it is a new subject not only in China but also worldwide, I deem it rather practical to make a theoretical study in the following article.Germany is a country with a highly advanced vocational education system, and vocational education has once been regarded as Germany's secret weapon of its quick economic development after the World War II. The Dual System of the German vocational schools and big enterprises has played a vital important part in the country's economic development. During the past few years, Germany has laid emphasis on fostering the students' comprehensive vocational ability as well as on overcoming the disadvantages of the Dual System. The following article contains a theoretical comparison between China and Germany's different ways of fostering the comprehensive vocational ability; it introduces the German ways and puts forward a new idea of systematical work process curricula. The comparison covers the fostering of teachers in vocational education, the practice-oriented teaching method and the project-based teaching method. Although some efforts have been made in the studying of DACUM, project-based teaching method, MES modular method and CBE, yet effective patterns and methods of fostering comprehensive vocational ability have not yet formed due to the vocational education system, the teachers' level and the enterprises' view on vocational education. The big difference existing between China and Germany's vocational education in curriculum arrangements, fostering of teachers and teaching methods certifies that China still has a long way to go in the same respects.Therefore, we must put the goal of vocational education into practice and make vocational education a contribution to the development of economy. It is a key procedure for the vocational schools to cooperate with enterprises and the society to foster a qualified teachers team with a combination of both skills and theories, only in this way, can we provide enterprises with high qualified skillful personnel of comprehensive vocational ability.