On Curriculum Leadership Of Vocational Education

Under the view of curriculum leadership, there are a series of serious and urgent theoretical and practical problems of vocational education in our country, of which are including the hesitation and faintness between personal values and social values, the lack and unreason of strategic planning and the deficiency and distortion of the whole competency development, etc. Therefore, we must activate the demand and possibility of curriculum leadership of vocational education and enhance the research on it, to cope with the challenge of market economy.Curriculum leadership of vocational education is the decision actions that all the stakeholders do, through their own responsibilities and powers, to effect the vocational education curriculum development. The main function of curriculum leadership of vocational education is prompting teachers and students' enthusiasm to be involved in curriculum, thereby, to develop and implement curriculum better, and to improve the teaching quality of vocational schools. The basic value of curriculum leadership of vocational education is student-centered, employment-oriented and shared leadership.Based on the existentialism, curriculum leadership of vocational education emphasizes changing the presupposition of 'poor academic performance' of vocational school students. It transfers the concept of knowledge from epistemology to existentialism, enhances the activity and selectivity of the curriculum of vocational education to adapt the responsiveness to diverse populations and industries, and confirms the subject position of teachers and students in vocational education curriculum. It also extends the curriculum and teaching from book knowledge to career life, turning the teaching process into the construction process of knowledge and life, both for teachers and students.The way of curriculum leadership of vocational education should be professional, democratic and serving. The leaders of curriculum leadership of vocational education should not only one individual or one organization, but be diversification and have multi-administrative levels. The actions of curriculum leadership of vocational education include making the vision and strategy of curriculum, and establishing the team and culture of curriculum. To a large extent, curriculum leadership of vocational education is a kind of administrative acts, its process and result would be affected by all different administrative powers and decisions, but meanwhile, its quality and level also are influenced deeply by its professional attributes, which therefore should be strengthened.The main matters of curriculum leadership of vocational education include guiding the teams to study the curriculum problems of vocational education, clarifying the value of curriculum of vocational education, establishing the system of 'dual-client values' to increase the status of value subject both for students and organizations. It also plans the curriculum development of vocational education by making sense of the curriculum objectives, optimizing the curriculum structures and enriching the curriculum resources. Finally, curriculum leadership of vocational education should negotiate the curriculum implement, through improving the curriculum negotiation abilities of vocational education teachers, promoting the communications of stakeholders, and ensuring the connections of classroom learning and job market.In response to the opportunities and challenges for human resource market, the vocational schools must be in the forward position for the job market, to achieve school-based curriculum leadership.